聶赫留道夫公爵是莫斯科地方法院的陪審員。一次他參加審理一個毒死人的命案。不料，從妓女瑪絲洛娃具有特色的眼神中認出原來她是他青年時代熱戀過的卡秋莎。於是十年前的往象一幕幕展現在聶赫留道夫眼前：當時他還是一個大學生，暑期住在姑媽的莊園裏寫論文。他善良，熱情，充滿理想，熱衷於西方進步思想，並愛上了姑媽傢的養女兼婢女卡秋莎。他們一起玩耍談天，感情純潔無暇。三年後，聶赫留道夫大學畢業，進了近衛軍團，路過姑媽莊園，再次見到了卡秋莎。在復活節的莊嚴氣氛中，他看着身穿雪白連衣裙的卡秋莎的苗條身材，她那泛起紅暈的臉蛋和那雙略帶斜眼的烏黑發亮的眼睛，再次體驗了純潔的愛情之樂。但是，這以後，世俗觀念和情欲占了上風，在臨行前他占有了卡秋莎，並拋棄了她。後來聽說她墮落了，也就徹底把她忘卻。現在，他意識到自己的罪過，良心受到譴責，但又怕被瑪絲洛娃認出當場出醜，內心非常緊張，思緒紛亂。其他法官、陪審員也都心不在焉，空發議論，結果錯判瑪絲洛娃流放西伯利亞服苦役四年。等聶赫留道夫搞清楚他們失職造成的後果，看到瑪絲洛娃被宣判後失聲痛哭、大呼冤枉的慘狀，他决心找庭長、律師設法補救。律師告訴他應該上訴。
聶赫留道夫懷着復雜激動的心情按約去米西（被認為是他的未婚妻）傢赴宴。本來這裏的豪華氣派和高雅氛圍常常使他感到安逸舒適。但今天他仿佛看透了每個人的本質，覺得樣樣可厭：柯爾查庚將軍粗魯得意；米西急於嫁人；公爵夫人裝腔作勢。他藉故提前辭別。
回到傢中他開始反省，進行“靈魂淨化”，發現他自己和周圍的人都是“又可恥，又可憎”。母親生前的行為；他和貴族長妻子的暖昧關係；他反對土地私有，卻又繼承母親的田莊以供揮霍；這一切都是在對卡秋莎犯下罪行以後發生的。他决定改變全部生活，第二天就嚮管傢宣佈：收拾好東西，辭退僕役，搬出這座大房子。
聶赫留道夫到監獄探望瑪絲洛娃，嚮她問起他們的孩子，她開始很驚奇，但又不願觸動創傷，衹簡單對答幾句，把他當作可利用的男人，嚮他要十盧布煙酒錢以麻醉自己，第二次聶赫留道夫又去探監並表示要贖罪，甚至要和她結婚。這時卡秋莎發出了悲憤的指責：“你今世利用我作樂，來世還想利用我來拯救你自己！”後來聶赫留道夫幫助她的男友，改善她的處境，她也戒煙戒酒，努力學好。
聶赫留道夫分散土地，奔走於彼得堡上層，結果上訴仍被駁回，他衹好嚮皇帝請願，立即回莫斯科準備隨卡秋莎去西伯利亞。途中卡秋莎深受政治犯高尚情操的感染，原諒了聶赫留道夫，為了他的幸福，同意與尊重她體貼她的西蒙鬆結合。聶赫留道夫也從《聖經》中得到“人類應該相親相愛，不可仇視”的啓示。
這兩個主人公的經歷，表現了他們在精神上和道德上的復活。小說揭露了那些貪贓枉法的官吏，觸及了舊社會制度的本質。
〖小說背景〗
《復活》是托爾斯泰的晚期代表作。這時作傢世界觀已經發生激變，拋棄了上層地主貴族階層的傳統觀點，用宗法農民的眼光重新審查了各種社會現象，通過男女主人公的遭遇淋漓盡致地描繪出一幅幅沙俄社會的真實圖景：草菅人命的法庭和監禁無辜百姓的牢獄；金碧輝煌的教堂和襤褸憔悴的犯人；荒芫破産的農村和豪華奢侈的京都；茫茫的西伯利亞和手銬腳鐐的政治犯。托爾斯泰以最清醒的現實主義態度對當時的全套國傢機器進行了激烈的抨擊。然而在《復活》中，托爾斯泰雖然對現實社會做了激烈的抨擊，揭露了社會制度的本質，但是小說結尾，仍然把改革社會的寄希望於基督教，又把自己的宗教觀強行植入小說當中，並且幾乎否定了資本主義一切國傢機器的一切作用，不得不說是小說思想境界上的一個遺憾。
小說原計劃創作四部，但衹創作了三部。
The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime (it was first serialized in the popular weekly Niva). Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church. It was first published serially in the magazine Niva as an effort to raise funds for the resettlement of the Dukhobors.
Plot outline
The story is about a nobleman named Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, who seeks redemption for a sin committed years earlier. His brief affair with a maid resulted in her being fired and ending up in prostitution. The book treats his attempts to help her out of her current misery, but also focuses on his personal mental and moral struggle.
Framed for murder, the maid, Maslova, is convicted by mistake, sent to Siberia. Nekhlyudov goes to visit her in prison, meets other prisoners, hears their stories, and slowly comes to realize that all around his charmed and golden aristocratic world, yet invisible to it, is a much larger world of oppression, misery and barbarism. Story after story he hears and even sees of people chained without cause, beaten without cause, immured in dungeons for life without cause—and all punctuated like lightning flashes by startling vignettes—a twelve year old boy sleeping in a lake of human dung from an overflowing latrine because there is no other place on the prison floor, but clinging in a vain search for love to the leg of the man next to him—until the book achieves the bizarre intensity of a horrific fever dream.
Popular and critical reception
The book was eagerly awaited. "How all of us rejoiced," one critic wrote on learning that Tolstoy had decided to make his first fiction in 25 years, not a short novella but a full-length novel. "May God grant that there will be more and more!" It outsold Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Despite its early success, today Resurrection is not as famous as the works that preceded it.
Some writers have said that Resurrection has characters that are one-dimensional and that as a whole the book lacks Tolstoy's earlier attention to detail. By this point, Tolstoy was writing in a style that favored meaning over aesthetic quality.
The book faced much censorship upon publication. The complete and accurate text was not published until 1936. Many publishers printed their own editions because they assumed that Tolstoy had given up all copyrights as he had done with previous books. Instead, Tolstoy kept the copyright and donated all royalties to Doukhobor,who were Russian pacifists hoping to emigrate to Canada.
Adaptations
Operatic adaptations of the novel include the Risurrezione by Italian composer Franco Alfano, Vzkriesenie by Slovak composer Ján Cikker, and Resurrection by American composer Tod Machover. Additionally, various film adaptations have been produced. The well known version is a Russian film Resurrection directed by Mikhail Shveitser with Evgeniy Matveyev, Tamara Semina and Pavel Massalsky.
聶赫留道夫懷着復雜激動的心情按約去米西（被認為是他的未婚妻）傢赴宴。本來這裏的豪華氣派和高雅氛圍常常使他感到安逸舒適。但今天他仿佛看透了每個人的本質，覺得樣樣可厭：柯爾查庚將軍粗魯得意；米西急於嫁人；公爵夫人裝腔作勢。他藉故提前辭別。
回到傢中他開始反省，進行“靈魂淨化”，發現他自己和周圍的人都是“又可恥，又可憎”。母親生前的行為；他和貴族長妻子的暖昧關係；他反對土地私有，卻又繼承母親的田莊以供揮霍；這一切都是在對卡秋莎犯下罪行以後發生的。他决定改變全部生活，第二天就嚮管傢宣佈：收拾好東西，辭退僕役，搬出這座大房子。
聶赫留道夫到監獄探望瑪絲洛娃，嚮她問起他們的孩子，她開始很驚奇，但又不願觸動創傷，衹簡單對答幾句，把他當作可利用的男人，嚮他要十盧布煙酒錢以麻醉自己，第二次聶赫留道夫又去探監並表示要贖罪，甚至要和她結婚。這時卡秋莎發出了悲憤的指責：“你今世利用我作樂，來世還想利用我來拯救你自己！”後來聶赫留道夫幫助她的男友，改善她的處境，她也戒煙戒酒，努力學好。
聶赫留道夫分散土地，奔走於彼得堡上層，結果上訴仍被駁回，他衹好嚮皇帝請願，立即回莫斯科準備隨卡秋莎去西伯利亞。途中卡秋莎深受政治犯高尚情操的感染，原諒了聶赫留道夫，為了他的幸福，同意與尊重她體貼她的西蒙鬆結合。聶赫留道夫也從《聖經》中得到“人類應該相親相愛，不可仇視”的啓示。
這兩個主人公的經歷，表現了他們在精神上和道德上的復活。小說揭露了那些貪贓枉法的官吏，觸及了舊社會制度的本質。
〖小說背景〗
《復活》是托爾斯泰的晚期代表作。這時作傢世界觀已經發生激變，拋棄了上層地主貴族階層的傳統觀點，用宗法農民的眼光重新審查了各種社會現象，通過男女主人公的遭遇淋漓盡致地描繪出一幅幅沙俄社會的真實圖景：草菅人命的法庭和監禁無辜百姓的牢獄；金碧輝煌的教堂和襤褸憔悴的犯人；荒芫破産的農村和豪華奢侈的京都；茫茫的西伯利亞和手銬腳鐐的政治犯。托爾斯泰以最清醒的現實主義態度對當時的全套國傢機器進行了激烈的抨擊。然而在《復活》中，托爾斯泰雖然對現實社會做了激烈的抨擊，揭露了社會制度的本質，但是小說結尾，仍然把改革社會的寄希望於基督教，又把自己的宗教觀強行植入小說當中，並且幾乎否定了資本主義一切國傢機器的一切作用，不得不說是小說思想境界上的一個遺憾。
小說原計劃創作四部，但衹創作了三部。
The book is the last of his major long fiction works published in his lifetime (it was first serialized in the popular weekly Niva). Tolstoy intended the novel as an exposition of injustice of man-made laws and the hypocrisy of institutionalized church. It was first published serially in the magazine Niva as an effort to raise funds for the resettlement of the Dukhobors.
Plot outline
The story is about a nobleman named Dmitri Ivanovich Nekhlyudov, who seeks redemption for a sin committed years earlier. His brief affair with a maid resulted in her being fired and ending up in prostitution. The book treats his attempts to help her out of her current misery, but also focuses on his personal mental and moral struggle.
Framed for murder, the maid, Maslova, is convicted by mistake, sent to Siberia. Nekhlyudov goes to visit her in prison, meets other prisoners, hears their stories, and slowly comes to realize that all around his charmed and golden aristocratic world, yet invisible to it, is a much larger world of oppression, misery and barbarism. Story after story he hears and even sees of people chained without cause, beaten without cause, immured in dungeons for life without cause—and all punctuated like lightning flashes by startling vignettes—a twelve year old boy sleeping in a lake of human dung from an overflowing latrine because there is no other place on the prison floor, but clinging in a vain search for love to the leg of the man next to him—until the book achieves the bizarre intensity of a horrific fever dream.
Popular and critical reception
The book was eagerly awaited. "How all of us rejoiced," one critic wrote on learning that Tolstoy had decided to make his first fiction in 25 years, not a short novella but a full-length novel. "May God grant that there will be more and more!" It outsold Anna Karenina and War and Peace. Despite its early success, today Resurrection is not as famous as the works that preceded it.
Some writers have said that Resurrection has characters that are one-dimensional and that as a whole the book lacks Tolstoy's earlier attention to detail. By this point, Tolstoy was writing in a style that favored meaning over aesthetic quality.
The book faced much censorship upon publication. The complete and accurate text was not published until 1936. Many publishers printed their own editions because they assumed that Tolstoy had given up all copyrights as he had done with previous books. Instead, Tolstoy kept the copyright and donated all royalties to Doukhobor,who were Russian pacifists hoping to emigrate to Canada.
Adaptations
Operatic adaptations of the novel include the Risurrezione by Italian composer Franco Alfano, Vzkriesenie by Slovak composer Ján Cikker, and Resurrection by American composer Tod Machover. Additionally, various film adaptations have been produced. The well known version is a Russian film Resurrection directed by Mikhail Shveitser with Evgeniy Matveyev, Tamara Semina and Pavel Massalsky.
《安娜·卡列尼娜》（俄語：Анна Каренина）是俄國作傢列夫·托爾斯泰於1875年-1877年間創作的小說，被廣泛認為是寫實主義小說的經典代表。《安娜·卡列尼娜》完稿於1877年，1875年1月開始連載於〈俄羅斯公報〉上。小說甫發表就引發了熱烈的討論。托爾斯泰的堂姑母亞歷山德拉·安得烈葉夫娜·托爾斯泰婭曾寫道：“《安娜·卡列尼娜》的每個篇章都轟動了整個社會，引起了熱烈的爭論，毀譽參半，褒貶不一。似乎議論的是他們的切身問題一樣。”作品共分八章，開場白“幸福的家庭都是相似的，不幸的家庭各有各的不幸”（Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way），是托氏對婚姻和家庭的悟言。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-簡介
在托爾斯泰全部作品中，《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》、《復活》是三個里程碑，也是他的三部代表作品。《安娜·卡列尼娜》在這三部代表作中有其特殊的重要性，它是三部巨著之中藝術上最為完整的一部，並且體現了托氏思想和藝術發展道路的過渡與轉變，可以稱之為代表作中的代表作。它通過女主人公安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，和列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-作傢簡介
列夫·尼古拉耶維奇·托爾斯泰（1828-1910）是俄國批判現實主義文學最偉大的代表，世界文學史上最偉大的作傢之一。在世界文壇中堪與莎士比亞、歌德、巴爾紮剋並肩而立的作傢當首推列夫托爾斯泰。他那三部鴻篇巨著無疑代表了19世紀世界現實主義文學的最高水平。列夫·托爾斯泰是俄國文學史上最偉大的文豪之一，他在文學方面的成就受到舉世矚目的認同。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-內容梗概
《安娜·卡列尼娜》通過女主人公安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，和列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。
故事以雙綫進行，一為安娜，一為列文。托氏以二人為軸，描寫出不同的婚姻和家庭生活，更進一步則寫出當時俄國政治，宗教，農事景像。
在文中，列文為托氏之化身，代表着1860,70年代的社會轉型催生者。列文重視農事，對貴族生活不甚投入，住在鄉村和指導農民工作。列文熱愛吉蒂，起初求婚被拒，但幾經波折，終抱得美人歸，並一同住在鄉下。
女主人翁安娜，年青時和丈夫亞歷山大．卡列寧（Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin）結合，本婚姻美滿，育有一子。卡列寧在仕途上成功，安娜亦於交際場上光茫四射。故事始於奧布朗斯基公爵和英國家庭女教師戀愛，與妻子道麗鬧翻，求助於其妺安娜。安娜從聖．彼得堡到莫斯科替二人調解，在車站認識了年輕軍官佛倫斯基（Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky）。並在莫斯科一次舞會中和佛倫斯基發生致命的戀情，自此不能自拔，最後身敗名列並自殺身亡。佛倫斯基為求得美人，追隨安娜至聖彼得堡，最後兩人陷入熱戀。他倆頻頻幽會，最後安娜懷孕，並嚮丈夫承認了私情。卡列寧一度想與妻子分居，但為存面子，拒絶離婚並要求妻子終止戀情。然而安娜分娩時幾乎難産而瀕臨死亡，在死亡面前，卡列寧原諒了她。安娜病後無法壓抑自己對佛倫斯基的愛，終於離傢出走。佛倫斯基帶着安娜前往意大利旅行，這時安娜感到無比的幸福。其後回到俄羅斯，於兒子生日時，按捺不住偷偷會見自己的兒子。卻無法見容於俄國社會，上流社會把安娜看作墮落的女人，斷絶和她的往來。安娜衹得移居鄉下，靠寫作打發時間。二人共處日久，佛倫斯基和安娜在生活上的不信任日增。安娜感到很難過，認為情人為前途名譽離她而去，沮喪失望之下，安娜為處罰佛倫斯基，在火車駛近時跳下火車月臺自殺。葬禮之後，亞歷山大·卡列寧帶走她的女兒，佛倫斯基受到良心的譴責，大病一場，後來志願從軍，前往巴爾幹參戰，但求一死。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-創作背景資料
在世界文學的巍巍群山中，堪與莎士比亞、歌德、巴爾紮剋這幾座高峰比肩而立的俄國作傢當首推列夫·托爾斯泰。托爾斯泰是一位有思想的藝術傢，也是一位博學的藝術大師。他的作品展現的社會畫面之廣阔，藴含的思想之豐饒，融會的藝術、語言、哲學、歷史、民俗乃至自然科學等各種知識之廣博，常常令人望洋興嘆。《安娜·卡列尼娜》是他的一部既美不勝收而又博大精深的巨製。
巨大的思想和藝術價值，使得這部巨著一發表便引起巨大社會反響。托爾斯泰並沒有簡單地寫一個男女私通的故事，而是通過這個故事揭示了俄國社會中婦女的地位，並由此來鞭撻它的不合理性。作品描寫了個人感情需要與社會道德之間的衝突。1877年，小說首版發行。據同代人稱，它不啻是引起了“一場真正的社會大爆炸”，它的各個章節都引起了整個社會的“蹺足”註視，及無休無止的“議論、推崇、非難和爭吵，仿佛事情關涉到每個人最切身的問題”。
但不久，社會就公認它是一部了不起的巨著，它所達到的高度是俄國文學從未達到過的。偉大作傢陀思妥耶夫斯基興奮地評論道：“這是一部盡善盡美的藝術傑作，現代歐洲文學中沒有一部同類的東西可以和它相比！”他甚至稱托爾斯泰為“藝術之神”。而書中的女主人公安娜·卡列尼娜則成為世界文學史上最優美豐滿的女性形象之一。這個資産階級婦女解放的先鋒，以自己的方式追求個性的解放和真誠的愛情，雖然由於制度的桎梏，她的悲劇衹能以失敗而告終。但她以內心體驗的深刻與感情的強烈真摯，以蓬勃的生命力和悲劇性命運而扣人心弦。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》的構思始於1870年，而到1873年托爾斯泰纔開始動筆。這是他一生中精神睏頓的時期。最初，托爾斯泰是想寫一個上流社會已婚婦女失足的故事，但隨着寫作的深入，原來的構思不斷被修改。小說的初步創作不過僅用了短短的50天時間便得以完成，然而托爾斯泰很不滿意，他又花費了數十倍的時間來不斷修正，前後經過12次大的改動，遲至4年之後纔正式出版。這時，小說廢棄的手稿高達1米多！“全部都應當改寫，再改寫”，這是托爾斯泰經常挂在嘴邊的一句話。顯然，一部《安娜·卡列尼娜》與其說是寫出來的，不如說是改出來的。
正是在作者近乎苛刻的追求中，小說的重心有了巨大的轉移，安娜由最初構思中的“失了足的女人”（她趣味惡劣、賣弄風情，品行不端），變成了一個品格高雅、敢於追求真正的愛情與幸福的“叛女”形象，從而成為世界文學中最具反抗精神的女性之一。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》通過安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。小說藝術上最突出的特點是首次成功地采用了兩條平行綫索互相對照、相輔相成的“拱門式” 結構，並在心理描寫上細緻入微、精妙絶倫。小說中那大段的人物內心獨白，無疑都是現實主義描寫的典範。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-人物形象
安娜
《安娜·卡列尼娜》是由兩條主要的平行綫索和一條聯結性次要綫索結構而成的，整體上反映了農奴製改革後“一切都翻了一個身，一切都剛剛安排下來”的那個時代在政治、經濟、道德、心理等方面的矛盾。小說通過安娜—— 卡列寧——渥倫斯基綫索展示了封建主義家庭關係的瓦解和道德的淪喪；通過列文——吉提綫索描繪出資本主義勢力侵入農村後，地主經濟面臨危機的情景，揭示出作者執着地探求出路的痛苦心情。而道麗——奧勃朗斯基這一次要綫索巧妙地聯結兩條主綫，在家庭思想上三條綫索相互對應、參照，勾勒出三種不同類型的家庭模式和生活方式。作者以這種建築學而自豪，圓拱將兩座大廈聯結得天衣無縫，“使人覺察不出什麽地方是拱頂”。
主人公安娜·卡列尼娜是世界文學史上最優美豐滿的女性形象之一。她以內心體驗的深刻與感情的強烈真摯，以蓬勃的生命力和悲劇性命運而扣人心弦。
安娜第一次出現時的音容笑貌令人難以忘懷：她姿態端麗、溫雅，一雙濃密的睫毛掩映下的眼睛中“有一股被壓抑的生氣在她的臉上流露……仿佛有一種過剩的生命力洋溢在她的全身心，違反她的意志”，在眼神和微笑中顯現出來。在這幅出色的肖像中展現了安娜的精神美，也提示我們去探究她的生活之謎。安娜父母早逝，在姑母包辦下嫁給了比她大二十歲的大官僚卡列寧。婚後在宗法思想支配下她曾安於天命，衹是把全部感情寄托在兒子身上。渥倫斯基喚醒了她晚熟的愛情。她渴望自由而大膽地愛，不願像別特西公爵夫人那樣在傢宴上公開接待情人；也不願接受丈夫的建議仍然保持表面的夫妻關係，偷偷與情人往來；終於衝出家庭與渥倫斯基結合，公然與整個上流社會對抗。從此安娜失去了一個貴族婦女在社交界的一切地位和權利，除了渥倫斯基的愛，她一無所有，因此，她熱烈而執着地獻身於這種愛。確實，在國外，在渥倫斯基的莊園裏，安娜曾體驗過短暫的“不可原諒的幸福”。她丟棄母親的天職，但內心無法平息因失去愛子而産生的悲傷；她想昂起驕傲的頭，宣稱她是幸福的女人，但卻擺脫不掉有罪的妻子的意識。她的靈魂一直受到折磨。而孤註一擲的、囿於自我的對渥倫斯基的愛又不可能得到相應的感情反響，安娜絶望了，她在臨終前滿含怨憤地喊出：“一切全是虛偽、全是謊言、全是欺騙、全是罪惡。”
安娜的形象在作傢創作過程中有過極大變化：從一個低級趣味的失足女人改寫成真誠、嚴肅、寧為玉碎、不為瓦全的女性。托爾斯泰通過安娜的愛情、家庭悲劇寄寓了他對當時動蕩的俄國社會中人的命運和倫理道德準則的思考。作傢歌頌人的生命力，贊揚人性的合理要求；同時，他又堅决否定一切政治、社會活動（包括婦女解放運動）對改善人們命運的作用，強調母親——婦女天職的重要性。作傢世界觀的矛盾構成安娜形象的復雜性。一百多年來各國作傢按自己的理解把安娜搬上舞臺、銀幕、熒光屏。安娜形象一直激動着不同時代、不同民族的讀者，這正說明安娜形象的藝術生命力是不朽的。
列文
列文則是托爾斯泰式主人公中自傳性特別強的一個人物，他在托爾斯泰的創作中起着承前啓後的作用，在他身上藝術地再現了作傢世界觀激變前夕的思想感情和生活感受，從結構安排來看，列文的幸福家庭與安娜的不幸家庭互為對照，但從思想探索來看，列文婚後卻産生了精神危機，他為貴族階級自甘敗落而憂心忡忡。他研究勞動力在農業生産中的作用，製定“不流血的革命”方案，探討人生的目的，但卻毫無出路。羅曼·羅蘭指出，列文不僅體現了托爾斯泰看待事物的既保守又民主的觀點，而且“列文和吉提的戀愛，他倆婚後的頭幾年生活，就是作傢自己家庭生活回憶的搬演。同樣，列文哥哥之死也是托爾斯泰的哥哥德米特裏之死的痛苦追憶”。而作品的尾聲“則是作者本人趨嚮精神革命的過渡”。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-主題思想
關於列夫·托爾斯泰，馬原有一個說法，他認為托爾斯泰是小說史上爭議最少的作傢。這裏所說的爭議最少，指的是他在文學史上的地位。也就是說，你可以喜歡或不喜歡托爾斯泰的作品，但似乎無人能夠否認他作為一位傑出思想傢和第一流小說傢的地位。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》在列夫·托爾斯泰的所有作品中，是寫得最好的。《戰爭與和平》也許更波瀾壯闊、更雄偉、更有氣勢，但它不如《安娜·卡列尼娜》那麽純粹、那麽完美。順便說一句，列夫·托爾斯泰並不是一個出色的文體傢，但他的文體的精美與和諧無與倫比，這並非來自作者對小說修辭、技巧、敘述方式的刻意追求，而僅僅源於藝術上的直覺。
在《安娜·卡列尼娜》這部小說中，列夫·托爾斯泰塑造了許多在文學史上光芒四射的人物：安娜、渥倫斯基、吉提、列文、卡列寧、奧布浪斯基公爵……在這些人物中，惟一一個在生活中左右逢源，帶有點喜劇色彩的就是奧布浪斯基公爵，其他的人物無不與死亡主題有關。如果我們簡單地歸納一下，這部作品主要寫了兩個故事：其一，是安娜與渥倫斯基從相識、熱戀到毀滅的過程，以及圍繞這一進程的所有社會關係的糾葛，其二是列文的故事以及他在宗教意義上的展開個人思考。
正如那句著名的開場白所顯示的一樣，作者對現實的思考是以家庭婚姻為基本單位而展開的，至少涉及到了四種婚姻或愛情答案：卡列寧夫婦，安娜和渥倫斯基，奧布浪斯基夫婦，列文與吉提。每一個答案都意味着罪惡和災難。安娜是惟一經歷了兩種不同婚姻(愛情)形式的人物。在作者所賦予的安娜的性格中，我以為激情和活力是其基本的內涵，正是這種壓抑不住的活力使美貌純潔的吉提相形見絀；正是這種被喚醒的激情使她與卡列寧的婚姻、甚至彼得堡習以為常的社交生活、甚至包括孩子謝遼沙都黯然失色。
與這種激情與活力相伴而來的是不顧一切的勇氣。當小說中寫到渥倫斯基在賽馬會上摔下馬來，安娜因失聲大叫而暴露了"姦情"之時，對丈夫說出下面這段話是需要一點勇氣的，“我愛他，我是他的情婦……隨你高興怎麽樣把我處置吧。”托爾斯泰對這種激情真是太熟悉了，我們不妨想一想《戰爭與和平》中的娜塔莎，《復活》中的卡秋莎，還有蟄伏於作者心中的那頭強壯的熊--它的咆哮聲一直睏擾着列夫·托爾斯泰。
馬丁·杜伽爾曾認為，托爾斯泰是最具洞察力的作傢，他的目光十分銳利，能夠穿透生活的壁壘而發現隱含其中的"真實"。但我卻傾嚮於認為，從根本上來說，托爾斯泰是一個圖解自我觀念的作傢，不管是早期還是晚期作品，主題上的聯繫十分清晰，尤其是《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》兩部巨著，其中的人物、情節、主題多有雷同之處，他的觀念的疆域並不寬廣，他的素材也不豐富，但這並不妨礙托爾斯泰的偉大，正如塞萬提斯的狹隘主題並不妨礙《堂吉訶德》的偉大一樣。小說的真實來自他的智慧，敏感而浩瀚的心靈，而更為重要的是他的誠實。維特根斯坦在讀完《哈澤·穆拉特》以後曾感慨地說： “他(托爾斯泰)是一個真正的人，他有權寫作。”
托爾斯泰與《安娜·卡列尼娜》
關於列夫·托爾斯泰，馬原有一個說法，他認為托爾斯泰是小說史上爭議最少的作傢。我理解他的意思，這裏所說的爭議最少，指的是他在文學史上的地位。也就是說，你可以喜歡或不喜歡托爾斯泰的作品，但似乎無人能夠否認他作為一位傑出思想傢和第一流小說傢的地位。
在我的學生中間，對托爾斯泰不屑一顧的大有人在。有一次碰到一位學生，依我看他的導師是一名頗有學問的俄國文學專傢，不知何故，該生卻對恩師頗為不滿，提出是否可以轉到我的名下，讓我給他指導。我問他為何要更換導師，他便列舉了原導師的幾個罪狀，其中一條是：他竟然讓我去讀什麽《安娜·卡列尼娜》。可見，在這些言必稱美國的學生們的頭腦中，老托爾斯泰顯然已經是一個不中用的古董了。我對他說，導師就不必換了。因為如果我當你的導師，第一本推薦的書恐怕還是《安娜·卡列尼娜》。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》不僅是我最喜歡的長篇小說，而且我也認為，在列夫·托爾斯泰的所有作品中，它也是寫得最好的。《戰爭與和平》也許更波瀾壯闊、更雄偉、更有氣勢，但它不如《安娜·卡列尼娜》那麽純粹、那麽完美。順便說一句，列夫·托爾斯泰並不是一個出色的文體傢，但他的文體的精美與和諧無與倫比，這並非來自作者對小說修辭、技巧、敘述方式的刻意追求，而僅僅源於藝術上的直覺。
在《安娜·卡列尼娜》這部小說中，列夫·托爾斯泰塑造了許多在文學史上光芒四射的人物：安娜、渥倫斯基、吉提、列文、卡列寧、奧布浪斯基公爵……在這些人物中，惟一一個在生活中左右逢源，帶有點喜劇色彩的就是奧布浪斯基公爵，其他的人物無不與死亡主題有關。如果我們簡單地歸納一下，這部作品主要寫了兩個故事：其一，是安娜與渥倫斯基從相識、熱戀到毀滅的過程，以及圍繞這一進程的所有社會關係的糾葛，其二是列文的故事以及他在宗教意義上的展開個人思考。
正如那句著名的開場白所顯示的一樣，作者對現實的思考是以家庭婚姻為基本單位而展開的，至少涉及到了四種婚姻或愛情答案：卡列寧夫婦，安娜和渥倫斯基，奧布浪斯基夫婦，列文與吉提。每一個答案都意味着罪惡和災難。安娜是惟一經歷了兩種不同婚姻(愛情)形式的人物。在作者所賦予的安娜的性格中，我以為激情和活力是其基本的內涵，正是這種壓抑不住的活力使美貌純潔的吉提相形見絀；正是這種被喚醒的激情使她與卡列寧的婚姻、甚至彼得堡習以為常的社交生活、甚至包括孩子謝遼沙都黯然失色。
與這種激情與活力相伴而來的是不顧一切的勇氣。當小說中寫到渥倫斯基在賽馬會上摔下馬來，安娜因失聲大叫而暴露了“姦情”之時，對丈夫說出下面這段話是需要一點勇氣的，“我愛他，我是他的情婦……隨你高興怎麽樣把我處置吧。”托爾斯泰對這種激情真是太熟悉了，我們不妨想一想《戰爭與和平》中的娜塔莎，《復活》中的卡秋莎，還有蟄伏於作者心中的那頭強壯的熊——它的咆哮聲一直睏擾着列夫·托爾斯泰。
馬丁·杜伽爾曾認為，托爾斯泰是最具洞察力的作傢，他的目光十分銳利，能夠穿透生活的壁壘而發現隱含其中的"真實"。但我卻傾嚮於認為，從根本上來說，托爾斯泰是一個圖解自我觀念的作傢，不管是早期還是晚期作品，主題上的聯繫十分清晰，尤其是《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》兩部巨著，其中的人物、情節、主題多有雷同之處，他的觀念的疆域並不寬廣，他的素材也不豐富，但這並不妨礙托爾斯泰的偉大，正如塞萬提斯的狹隘主題並不妨礙《堂吉訶德》的偉大一樣。小說的真實來自他的智慧，敏感而浩瀚的心靈，而更為重要的是他的誠實。維特根斯坦在讀完《哈澤·穆拉特》以後曾感慨地說：“他(托爾斯泰)是一個真正的人，他有權寫作。”
Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel, when he came to consider War and Peace to be more than a novel. The character of Anna was likely inspired, in part, by Maria Hartung (Russian spelling Maria Gartung, 1832–1919), the elder daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.[citation needed] Soon after meeting her at dinner, Tolstoy began reading Pushkin's prose and once had a fleeting daydream of "a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow", which proved to be the first intimation of Anna's character.
Although Russian critics dismissed the novel on its publication as a "trifling romance of high life", Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art". His opinion was shared by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style", and by William Faulkner, who described the novel as "the best ever written".[citation needed] The novel is currently enjoying popularity as demonstrated by a recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in The Top Ten, which declared that Anna Karenina is the "greatest novel ever written".
The title: Anna Karenin vs Anna Karenina
The title has been translated as both Anna Karenin and Anna Karenina. The first instance naturalizes the Russian name into English, whereas the second is a direct transliteration of the actual Russian name. As Vladimir Nabokov explains: "In Russian, a surname ending in a consonant acquires a final 'a' (except for the cases of such names that cannot be declined) when designating a woman".
Nabokov favours the first convention - removing the Russian 'a' to naturalize the name into English - but subsequent translators mostly allow Anna's actual Russian name to stand. Larissa Volokhonsky, herself a Russian, prefers the second option, while other translators like Constance Garnett and Rosemary Edmonds prefer the first solution.
Main characters
* Anna Arkadyevna Karenina – Stepan Oblonsky's sister, Karenin's wife and Vronsky's lover. She is also a minor character in War and Peace. [citation needed]
* Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky – Lover of Anna
* Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky ("Stiva") – a civil servant and Anna's brother.
* Princess Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya ("Dolly") – Stepan's wife
* Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin – a senior statesman and Anna's husband, twenty years her senior.
* Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin ("Kostya") – Kitty's suitor and then husband.
* Nikolai Levin – Konstantin's brother
* Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev – Konstantin's half-brother
* Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya ("Kitty") – Dolly's younger sister and later Levin's wife
* Princess Elizaveta ("Betsy") – Anna's wealthy, morally loose society friend and Vronsky's cousin
* Countess Lidia Ivanovna – Leader of a high society circle that includes Karenin, and shuns Princess Betsy and her circle. She maintains an interest in the mystical and spiritual
* Countess Vronskaya – Vronsky's mother
* Sergei Alexeyitch Karenin ("Seryozha") – Anna and Karenin's son
* Anna ("Annie") – Anna and Vronsky's daughter
* Varenka – a young orphaned girl, semi-adopted by an ailing Russian noblewoman, whom Kitty befriends while abroad
Plot summary
The novel is divided into eight parts. The novel begins with one of its most quoted lines:
“ Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ”
Part 1
The novel opens with a scene introducing Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky, "Stiva", a Moscow aristocrat and civil servant who has been unfaithful to his wife Darya Alexandrovna, nicknamed "Dolly". Dolly has discovered his affair - with the family's governess - and the house and family are in turmoil. Stiva's affair and his reaction to his wife's distress shows an amorous personality that he cannot seem to suppress.
In the midst of the turmoil, Stiva reminds the household that his married sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is coming to visit from Saint Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Stiva's childhood friend Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin ("Kostya") arrives in Moscow with the aim of proposing to Dolly's youngest sister Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, "Kitty". Levin is a passionate, restless but shy aristocratic landowner who, unlike his Moscow friends, chooses to live in the country on his large estate. He discovers that Kitty is also being pursued by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, an army officer.
At the railway station to meet Anna, Stiva bumps into Vronsky. Vronsky is there to meet his mother. Anna and the Countess Vronskaya have travelled together in the same carriage and talked together. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an "evil omen." Vronsky is infatuated with Anna. Anna, who is uneasy about leaving her young son, Seryozha, alone for the first time, talks openly and emotionally to Dolly about Stiva's affair and convinces Dolly that her husband still loves her, despite his infidelity. Dolly is moved by Anna's speeches and decides to forgive Stiva.
Dolly's youngest sister, Kitty, comes to visit her sister and Anna. Kitty, just 18, is in her first season as a debutante and is expected to make an excellent match with a man of her social standing. Vronsky has been paying her considerable attention, and she expects to dance with him at a ball that evening. Kitty is very struck by Anna's beauty and personality and is infatuated with her. When Levin proposes to Kitty at her home, she clumsily turns him down, because she believes she is in love with Vronsky and that he will propose to her.
At the ball, Vronsky pays Anna considerable attention, and dances with her, choosing her as a partner instead of Kitty, who is shocked and heartbroken. Kitty realises that Vronsky has fallen in love with Anna, and that despite his overt flirtations with her he has no intention of marrying her and in fact views his attentions to her as mere amusement, believing that she does the same.
Anna, shaken by her emotional and physical response to Vronsky, returns at once to Saint Petersburg. Vronsky travels on the same train. During the overnight journey, the two meet and Vronsky confesses his love. Anna refuses him, although she is deeply affected by his attentions to her.
Levin, crushed by Kitty's refusal, returns to his estate farm, abandoning any hope of marriage, and Anna returns to her husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a senior government official, and their son Sergei ("Seryozha") in Petersburg.
Tatiana Samoilova as Anna in the 1967 Soviet screen version of Tolstoy's novel.
On seeing her husband for the first time since her encounter with Vronsky, Anna realises that she finds him repulsive, noting the odd way that his ears press against his hat.
Part 2
The Shcherbatskys consult doctors over Kitty's health which has been failing since she realizes that Vronsky did not love her and that he did not intend to propose marriage to her, and that she refused and hurt Levin, whom she cares for, in vain. A specialist doctor advises that Kitty should go abroad to a health spa to recover. Dolly speaks to Kitty and understands that she is suffering because of Vronsky and Levin. Kitty, humiliated by Vronsky and tormented by her rejection of Levin, upsets her sister by referring to Stiva's infidelity and says she could never love a man who betrayed her.
Stiva stays with Levin on his country estate when he makes a sale of a plot of land, to provide funds for his expensive city lifestyle. Levin is upset at the poor deal he makes with the buyer and his lack of understanding of the rural lifestyle.
In St. Petersburg, Anna begins to spend more time with the fashionable socialite and gossip Princess Betsy and her circle, in order to meet Vronsky, Betsy's cousin. Vronsky continues to pursue Anna. Although Anna initially tries to reject him, she eventually succumbs to his attentions.
Karenin warns Anna of the impropriety of paying too much attention to Vronsky in public, which is becoming a subject of society gossip. He is concerned about his and his wife's public image, although he believes that Anna is above suspicion.
Vronsky, a keen horseman, takes part in a steeplechase event, during which he rides his mare Frou-Frou too hard and she falls and breaks her back. Vronsky escapes with minimal injuries but is devastated that his mare must be shot. Anna tells him that she is pregnant with his child, and is unable to hide her distress when Vronsky falls from the racehorse. Karenin is also present at the races and remarks to her that her behaviour is improper. Anna, in a state of extreme distress and emotion, confesses her affair to her husband. Karenin asks her to break off the affair to avoid society gossip and believes that their relationship can then continue as previously.
Kitty goes with her mother to a resort at a German spa to recover from her ill health. There they meet the Pietist Madame Stahl and the saintly Varenka, her adopted daughter. Influenced by Varenka, Kitty becomes extremely pious, but is disillusioned by her father`s criticism. She then returns to Moscow.
Part 3
Levin continues his work on his large country estate, a setting closely tied to his spiritual thoughts and struggles. Levin wrestles with the idea of falseness, wondering how he should go about ridding himself of it, and criticising what he feels is falseness in others. He develops ideas relating to agriculture and the unique relationship between the agricultural labourer and his native land and culture. He believes that the agricultural reforms of Europe will not work in Russia because of the unique culture and personality of the Russian peasant.
Levin pays Dolly a visit, and she attempts to understand what happened between him and Kitty and to explain Kitty's behaviour to him. Levin is very agitated by Dolly's talk about Kitty, and he begins to feel distant from her as he perceives her behaviour towards her children as false. Levin resolves to forget Kitty and contemplates the possibility of marriage to a peasant woman. However, a chance sighting of Kitty in her carriage as she travels to Dolly's house makes Levin realise he still loves her.
In St. Petersburg, Karenin crushes Anna by refusing to separate from her. He insists that their relationship remain as it was and threatens to take away their son Seryozha if she continues to pursue her affair with Vronsky.
Part 4
Anna continues to pursue her affair with Vronsky. Karenin begins to find the situation intolerable. He talks with a lawyer about obtaining a divorce. In Russia at that time, divorce could only be requested by the innocent party in an affair, and required either that the guilty party confessed (which would ruin Anna's position in society) or that the guilty party was discovered in the act. Karenin forces Anna to give him some letters written to her by Vronsky as proof of the affair. However, Anna's brother Stiva argues against it and persuades Karenin to speak with Dolly first.
Dolly broaches the subject with Karenin and asks him to reconsider his plans to divorce Anna. She seems to be unsuccessful, but Karenin changes his plans after hearing that Anna is dying after a difficult childbirth. At her bedside, Karenin forgives Vronsky. Vronsky, embarrassed by Karenin's magnanimity, attempts suicide by shooting himself. He fails in his attempt but wounds himself badly.
Anna recovers, having given birth to a daughter, Anna ("Annie"). Although her husband has forgiven her, and has become attached to the new baby, Anna cannot bear living with him. She hears that Vronsky is about to leave for a military posting in Tashkent and becomes desperate. Stiva finds himself pleading to Karenin on her behalf to free her by giving her a divorce. Vronsky is intent on leaving for Tashkent, but changes his mind after seeing Anna.
The couple leave for Europe - leaving behind Anna's son Seryozha - without obtaining a divorce.
Much more straightforward is Stiva's matchmaking with Levin: he arranges a meeting between Levin and Kitty which results in their reconciliation and betrothal.
Part 5
Levin and Kitty marry and immediately go to start their new life together on Levin's country estate. The couple are happy but do not have a very smooth start to their married life and take some time to get used to each other. Levin feels some dissatisfaction at the amount of time Kitty wants to spend with him and is slightly scornful of her preoccupation with domestic matters, which he feels are too prosaic and not compatible with his romantic ideas of love.
A few months later, Levin learns that his brother Nikolai is dying of consumption. Levin wants to go to him, and is initially angry and put out that Kitty wishes to accompany him. Levin feels that Kitty, whom he has placed on a pedestal, should not come down to earth and should not mix with people from a lower class. Levin assumes her insistence on coming must relate to a fear of boredom from being left alone, despite her true desire to support her husband in a difficult time. Kitty persuades him to take her with him after much discussion, where she proves a great help nursing Nikolai for weeks over his slow death. She also discovers she is pregnant.
In Europe, Vronsky and Anna struggle to find friends who will accept their situation. Whilst Anna is happy to be finally alone with Vronsky, he feels suffocated. They cannot socialize with Russians of their own social set and find it difficult to amuse themselves. Vronsky, who believed that being with Anna in freedom was the key to his happiness, finds himself increasingly bored and unsatisfied. He takes up painting, and makes an attempt to patronize an émigré Russian artist of genius. Vronsky cannot see that his own art lacks talent and passion, and that his clever conversation about art is an empty shell. Bored and restless, Anna and Vronsky decide to return to Russia.
In Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky stay in one of the best hotels but take separate suites. It becomes clear that whilst Vronsky is able to move in Society, Anna is barred from it. Even her old friend, Princess Betsy - who has had affairs herself - evades her company. Anna starts to become very jealous and anxious that Vronsky no longer loves her.
Karenin is comforted – and influenced – by the strong-willed Countess Lidia Ivanovna, an enthusiast of religious and mystic ideas fashionable with the upper classes. She counsels him to keep Seryozha away from Anna and to make him believe that his mother is dead. However, Seryozha refuses to believe that this is true. Anna manages to visit Seryozha unannounced and uninvited on his ninth birthday, but is discovered by Karenin.
Anna, desperate to resume at least in part her former position in Society, attends a show at the theatre at which all of Petersburg's high society are present. Vronsky begs her not to go, but is unable to bring himself to explain to her why she cannot go. At the theatre, Anna is openly snubbed by her former friends, one of whom makes a deliberate scene and leaves the theatre. Anna is devastated.
Unable to find a place for themselves in Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky leave for Vronsky's country estate.
Part 6
Dolly, her mother the Princess Scherbatskaya, and Dolly's children spend the summer with Levin and Kitty on the Levins' country estate. The Levins' life is simple and unaffected, although Levin is uneasy at the "invasion" of so many Scherbatskys. He is able to cope until he is consumed with an intense jealousy when one of the visitors, Veslovsky, flirts openly with the pregnant Kitty. Levin tries to overcome his jealousy but eventually succumbs to it and in an embarrassing scene evicts Veslovsky from his house. Veslovsky immediately goes to stay with Anna and Vronsky, whose estate is close by.
Dolly also pays a short visit to Anna at Vronsky's estate. The difference between the Levins' aristocratic but simple home life and Vronsky's overtly luxurious and lavish country home strikes Dolly, who is unable to keep pace with Anna's fashionable dresses or Vronsky's extravagant spending on the hospital he is building. However, all is not quite well with Anna and Vronsky. Dolly is also struck by Anna's anxious behaviour and new habit of half closing her eyes when she alludes to her difficult position. When Veslovsky flirts openly with Anna, she plays along with him even though she clearly feels uncomfortable. Vronsky makes an emotional request to Dolly, asking her to convince Anna to divorce her husband so that the two might marry and live normally. Dolly broaches the subject with Anna, who appears not to be convinced. However, Anna is becoming intensely jealous of Vronsky, and cannot bear it when he leaves her for short excursions. The two have started to quarrel about this and when Vronsky leaves for several days of provincial elections, a combination of boredom and suspicion convinces Anna she must marry him in order to prevent him from leaving her. She writes to Karenin, and she and Vronsky leave the countryside for Moscow.
Part 7
The Levins are in Moscow for Kitty's confinement. Despite initial reservations, Levin quickly gets used to the fast-paced, expensive and frivolous Moscow society life. He starts to accompany Stiva to his Moscow gentleman's club, where drinking and gambling are popular pastimes. At the club, Levin meets Vronsky and Stiva introduces them. Levin and Stiva pay a visit to Anna, who is occupying her empty days by being a patroness to an orphaned English girl. Levin is uneasy about the visit and not sure it is the proper thing to do, and Anna easily puts Levin under her spell. When he confesses to Kitty where he has been, she accuses him falsely of falling in love with Anna. The couple are reconciled, realising that Moscow life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Levin.
Anna, who has made a habit of inducing the young men who visit her to fall in love with her, cannot understand why she can attract a man like Levin, who has a young and beautiful new wife, but cannot attract Vronsky in the way she wants to. Anna's relationship with Vronsky is under increasing strain, as whilst he can move freely in Society - and continues to spend considerable time doing so to stress to Anna his independence as a man - she is excluded from all her previous social connections. She is estranged from baby Annie, her child with Vronsky and her increasing bitterness, boredom, jealousy and emotional strain cause the couple to argue. Anna uses morphine to help her sleep, a habit we learned she had begun during her time living with Vronsky at his country estate. Now she has become dependent on it.
After a long and difficult labour, Kitty gives birth to a son, Dmitri, nicknamed Mitya. Levin is both extremely moved and horrified by the sight of the tiny, helpless baby.
Stiva visits Karenin to encourage his commendation for a new post he is seeking. During the visit he asks him to grant Anna a divorce, but Karenin's decisions are now governed by a French "clairvoyant" – recommended by Lidia Ivanovna – who apparently has a vision in his sleep during Stiva's visit, and gives Karenin a cryptic message that is interpreted as meaning that he must decline the request for divorce.
Anna becomes increasingly jealous and irrational towards Vronsky, whom she suspects of having love affairs with other women, and of giving in to his mother's plans to marry him off to a rich Society woman. There is a bitter row, and Anna believes that the relationship is over. She starts to think of suicide as an escape from her torments. In her mental and emotional confusion, she sends a telegram to Vronsky asking him to come home to her, and pays a visit to Dolly and Kitty. Anna's confusion overcomes her, and in a parallel to the railway worker's accidental death in part 1, she commits suicide by throwing herself in the path of a train.
Part 8
Stiva gets the job he desired so much, and Karenin takes custody of baby Annie. A group of Russian volunteers, including Vronsky, who does not plan to return alive, depart from Russia to fight in the Orthodox Serbian revolt that has broken out against the Turks. Meanwhile, a lightning storm occurs at Levin's estate while his wife and newborn son are outside, causing him to fear for the safety of both of them, and to realize that he does indeed love his son similarly to how he loves Kitty. Also, Kitty's family concerns, namely, that a man as altruistic as her husband does not consider himself to be a Christian, are also addressed when Levin decides after talking to a peasant that devotion to living righteously as decreed by the Christian God is the only justifiable reason for living. After coming to this decision, but without telling anyone about it, he is initially displeased that this change of thought does not bring with it a complete transformation of his behavior to be more righteous. However, at the end of the book he comes to the conclusion that this fact, and the fact that there are other religions with similar views on goodness that are not Christian, are acceptable and that neither of these things diminish the fact that now his life can be meaningfully oriented toward goodness.
Style
Tolstoy's style in Anna Karenina is considered by many critics to be transitional, forming a bridge between the realist and modernist novel. The novel is narrated from a third-person-omniscient perspective, shifting between the perspectives of several major characters, though most frequently focusing on the opposing lifestyles and attitudes of its central protagonists of Anna and Levin. As such, each of the novel's eight sections contains internal variations in tone: it assumes a relaxed voice when following Stepan Oblonsky's thoughts and actions and a much more tense voice when describing Levin's social encounters. Much of the novel's seventh section depicts Anna's thoughts fluidly, following each one of her ruminations and free associations with its immediate successor. This groundbreaking use of stream-of-consciousness would be utilised by such later authors as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.
Also of significance is Tolstoy's use of real events in his narrative, to lend greater verisimilitude to the fictional events of his narrative. Characters debate significant sociopolitical issues affecting Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, such as the place and role of the Russian peasant in society, education reform, and women's rights. Tolstoy's depiction of the characters in these debates, and of their arguments, allows him to communicate his own political beliefs. Characters often attend similar social functions to those which Tolstoy attended, and he includes in these passages his own observations of the ideologies, behaviors, and ideas running through contemporary Russia through the thoughts of Levin. The broad array of situations and ideas depicted in Anna Karenina allows Tolstoy to present a treatise on his era's Russia, and, by virtue of its very breadth and depth, all of human society. This stylistic technique, as well as the novel's use of perspective, greatly contributes to the thematic structure of Anna Karenina.[citation needed]
Major themes
Anna Karenina is commonly thought to explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city. Translator Rosemary Edmonds wrote that Tolstoy doesn't explicitly moralise in the book, he allows his themes to emerge naturally from the "vast panorama of Russian life." She also writes that a key message is that "no one may build their happiness on another's pain," which is why things don't work out for Anna.
Levin is often considered as a semi-autobiographical portrayal of Tolstoy's own beliefs, struggles and life events. Tolstoy's first name is "Lev", and the Russian surname "Levin" means "of Lev". According to footnotes in the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, the viewpoints Levin supports throughout the novel in his arguments match Tolstoy's outspoken views on the same issues. Moreover, according to W. Gareth Jones, Levin proposed to Kitty in the same way as Tolstoy to Sophie Behrs. Additionally, Levin's request that his fiancée read his diary as a way of disclosing his faults and previous sexual encounters, parallels Tolstoy's own requests to his fiancée Sophie Behrs.
Anna Karenina and Tolstoy's A Confession
Alla Tarasova as Anna Karenina in 1937
Many of the novel's themes can also be found in Tolstoy's A Confession, his first-person rumination about the nature of life and faith, written just two years after the publication of Anna Karenina.
In this book, Tolstoy describes his dissatisfaction with the hypocrisy of his social class:
“ Every time I tried to display my innermost desires – a wish to be morally good – I met with contempt and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to base desires I was praised and encouraged. ”
Tolstoy also details the acceptability of adulterous "liaisons" in aristocratic Russian society:
“ A dear old aunt of mine, the purest of creatures, with whom I lived, was always saying that she wished for nothing as much as that I would have a relationship with a married woman. "Rien ne forme un jeune homme comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut." ("Nothing educates a young man better than an affair with a woman established in society.") ”
Another theme in Anna Karenina is that of the aristocratic habit of speaking French instead of Russian, which Tolstoy suggests is another form of society's falseness. When Dolly insists on speaking French to her young daughter, Tanya, she begins to seem false and tedious to Levin, who finds himself unable to feel at ease in her house.
In a passage that could be interpreted as a sign of Anna's eventual redemption in Tolstoy's eyes, the narrator explains:
“ For in the end what are we, who are convinced that suicide is obligatory and yet cannot resolve to commit it, other than the weakest, the most inconsistent and, speaking frankly, the most stupid of people, making such a song and dance with our banalities? ”
A Confession contains many other autobiographical insights into the themes of Anna Karenina. A public domain version of it is here.
Film, television, and theatrical adaptations
For more details on this topic, see Adaptations of Anna Karenina.
* Operas based on Anna Karenina have been written by Sassano (Naples, 1905), Leoš Janáček (unfinished, 1907), Granelli (1912), E. Malherbe (unperformed, 1914), Jeno Hubay (Budapest, 1915), Robbiani (Rome, 1924), Goldbach (1930), Iain Hamilton (London, 1981) and David Carlson (Miami, 2007).
* Love, a 1927 silent film based loosely on the novel. The film starred Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
* Anna Karenina, a critically acclaimed 1935 film, directed by Clarence Brown. The film stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, and Maureen O'Sullivan.
* Anna Karenina, a 1948 film directed by Julien Duvivier with Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson and Kieron Moore.
* "MGM Theater Of The Air - Anna Karenina (Radio Broadcast)" (Broadcast 12/09/1949; on American radio, starring Marlene Dietrich
* "Nahr al-Hob" (or River of Love; 1960; an Egyptian movie starring Omar Sharif and Faten Hamama
* Anna Karenina, a 1967 Russian film directed by Aleksandr Zarkhi and starring Tatyana Samojlova, Nikolai Gritsenko and Vasili Lanovoy.
* Anna Karenina (1968) a ballet composed by Rodion Shchedrin
* Anna Karenina, a 1977 TV version in ten episodes. Made by the BBC it was directed by Basil Coleman and starred Nicola Pagett, Eric Porter and Stuart Wilson.
* Anna Karenina, a 1985 TV film directed by Simon Langton and starring Jacqueline Bisset, Paul Scofield and Christopher Reeve.
* Anna Karenina, a 1992 Broadway musical starring Ann Crumb and John Cunningham
* Anna Karenina, a 1997 British-American production filmed in St. Peterburg, Russia, by director Bernard Rose with Sophie Marceau as Anna Karenina.
* Anna Karenina, a 2000 TV version in four episodes. It was directed by David Blair and starred Helen McCrory, Stephen Dillane and Kevin McKidd.
* Anna Karenina a 2005 ballet with choreography by Boris Eifman and music drawn from the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Anna Karenina in literature
* Quirk Classics transformed Anna Karenina into the book 'Android Karenina' (other past transformations have included 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' and 'Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters')
* The novel is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
* Repeated reference is made explicitly to Leo Tolstoy and Anna Karenin in Muriel Barbery's Elegance of the Hedgehog
* Anna Karenina is also mentioned in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series Don't Go To Sleep.
* Mikhail Bulgakov makes reference to the Oblonsky household and Tolstoy in The Master and Margarita.
* In Jasper Fforde's novel Lost in a Good Book, a recurring joke is two unnamed "crowd-scene" characters from Anna Karenina discussing its plot.
* In the short-story "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami, the main character, an insomniac housewife, spends much time reading through and considering "Anna Karenina". Furthermore, in the short story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", by the same author, the character of Frog references "Anna Karenina" when discussing how to beat Worm.
* Martin Amis's character Lev, in the novel House of Meetings, compares the protagonist with Anna Karenina's Vronsky.
* In the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being Anna Karenina is compared with the novel like beauty of life, and Tereza arrives at Tomas's apartment with a copy of the book under her arm. In addition, Tereza and Tomas have a pet dog named Karenin, after Anna's husband.
* In the novel What Happened to Anna K. Irina Reyn loosely transfers the Anna Karenina story to a setting in modern-day New York City.
* Anna Karenina plays a central role in Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics (2002), set in 1929, as a new lector, Juan Julian, reads the text as background for cigar rollers in the Ybor City section of Tampa, FL. As he reads the story of adultery, the workers' passions are inflamed, and end in tragedy like Anna's.
* In "The Slippery Slope", the 10th book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans Violet, Klaus and the third Quagmire triplet Quigley need to use the central theme of "Anna Karenina" as the final password to open the Vernacularly Fastened Door leading to the V.F.D. Headquarters. Klaus remembered how his mother had read it to him one summer when he was young as a summer reading book. Klaus summarized the theme with these words: "The central theme of Anna Karenina is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy." Esme Squalor later said she once was supposed to read the book over the summer, but she decided it would never help her in her life and threw it in the fireplace.
* Guns, Germs, and Steel (by Jared Diamond) has a chapter (#9) on the domestication of large mammals, titled "Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle." This chapter begins with a variation on the quote, above.
* in Nicholas Sparks's book The Last Song, the main character, Ronnie, reads Anna Karenina and other Tolstoy books throughout the story.
Further reading
Translations
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Constance Garnett. Still widely reprinted.
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2000)
* Anna Karénina, Translated by Margaret Wettlin (Progress Publishers, 1978)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Joel Carmichael (Bantam Books, New York, 1960)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by David Magarshack (A Signet Classic, New American Library, New York and Scarborough, Ontario, 1961)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1918)
* Anna Karenin, Translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1954)
* Anna Karénina, Translated by Nathan Haskell Dole (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1886)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Kyril Zinovieff (Oneworld Classics 2008) ISBN 978-1-84749-059-9
Biographical and literary criticism
* Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981)
* Bayley, John, Tolstoy and the Novel (Chatto and Windus, London, 1966)
* Berlin, Isaiah, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967)
* Eikhenbaum, Boris, Tolstoi in the Seventies, trans. Albert Kaspin (Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1982)
* Evans, Mary, Anna Karenina (Routledge, London and New York, 1989)
* Gifford, Henry, Tolstoy (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982)
* Gifford, Henry (ed) Leo Tolstoy (Penguin Critical Anthologies, Harmondsworth, 1971)
* Leavis, F. R., Anna Karenina and Other Essays (Chatto and Windus, London, 1967)
* Mandelker, Amy, Framing 'Anna Karenina': Tolstoy, the Woman Question, and the Victorian Novel (Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1993)
* Morson,Gary Saul, Anna Karenina in our time: seeing more wisely (Yale University Press 2007) read parts at Google-Books
* Nabokov, Vladimir, Lectures on Russian Literature (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1981)
* Orwin, Donna Tussing, Tolstoy's Art and Thought, 1847-1880 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993)
* Speirs, Logan, Tolstoy and Chekhov (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971)
* Strakhov, Nikolai, N., "Levin and Social Chaos", in Gibian, ed., (W.W. Norton & Company New York, 2005).
* Steiner, George, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in Contrast (Faber and Faber, London, 1959)
* Thorlby, Anthony, Anna Karenina (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1987)
* Tolstoy, Leo, Correspondence, 2. vols., selected, ed. and trans. by R. F. Christian (Athlone Press, London and Scribner, New York, 1978)
* Tolstoy, Leo, Diaries, ed. and trans. by R. F. Christian (Athlone Press, London and Scribner, New York, 1985)
* Tolstoy, Sophia A., The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, ed. O. A. Golinenko, trans. Cathy Porter (Random House, New York, 1985)
* Turner, C. J. G., A Karenina Companion (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, 1993)
* Wasiolek, Edward, Critical Essays on Tolstoy (G. K. Hall, Boston, 1986)
* Wasiolek, Edward, Tolstoy's Major Fiction (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978)
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-簡介
在托爾斯泰全部作品中，《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》、《復活》是三個里程碑，也是他的三部代表作品。《安娜·卡列尼娜》在這三部代表作中有其特殊的重要性，它是三部巨著之中藝術上最為完整的一部，並且體現了托氏思想和藝術發展道路的過渡與轉變，可以稱之為代表作中的代表作。它通過女主人公安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，和列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-作傢簡介
列夫·尼古拉耶維奇·托爾斯泰（1828-1910）是俄國批判現實主義文學最偉大的代表，世界文學史上最偉大的作傢之一。在世界文壇中堪與莎士比亞、歌德、巴爾紮剋並肩而立的作傢當首推列夫托爾斯泰。他那三部鴻篇巨著無疑代表了19世紀世界現實主義文學的最高水平。列夫·托爾斯泰是俄國文學史上最偉大的文豪之一，他在文學方面的成就受到舉世矚目的認同。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-內容梗概
《安娜·卡列尼娜》通過女主人公安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，和列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。
故事以雙綫進行，一為安娜，一為列文。托氏以二人為軸，描寫出不同的婚姻和家庭生活，更進一步則寫出當時俄國政治，宗教，農事景像。
在文中，列文為托氏之化身，代表着1860,70年代的社會轉型催生者。列文重視農事，對貴族生活不甚投入，住在鄉村和指導農民工作。列文熱愛吉蒂，起初求婚被拒，但幾經波折，終抱得美人歸，並一同住在鄉下。
女主人翁安娜，年青時和丈夫亞歷山大．卡列寧（Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin）結合，本婚姻美滿，育有一子。卡列寧在仕途上成功，安娜亦於交際場上光茫四射。故事始於奧布朗斯基公爵和英國家庭女教師戀愛，與妻子道麗鬧翻，求助於其妺安娜。安娜從聖．彼得堡到莫斯科替二人調解，在車站認識了年輕軍官佛倫斯基（Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky）。並在莫斯科一次舞會中和佛倫斯基發生致命的戀情，自此不能自拔，最後身敗名列並自殺身亡。佛倫斯基為求得美人，追隨安娜至聖彼得堡，最後兩人陷入熱戀。他倆頻頻幽會，最後安娜懷孕，並嚮丈夫承認了私情。卡列寧一度想與妻子分居，但為存面子，拒絶離婚並要求妻子終止戀情。然而安娜分娩時幾乎難産而瀕臨死亡，在死亡面前，卡列寧原諒了她。安娜病後無法壓抑自己對佛倫斯基的愛，終於離傢出走。佛倫斯基帶着安娜前往意大利旅行，這時安娜感到無比的幸福。其後回到俄羅斯，於兒子生日時，按捺不住偷偷會見自己的兒子。卻無法見容於俄國社會，上流社會把安娜看作墮落的女人，斷絶和她的往來。安娜衹得移居鄉下，靠寫作打發時間。二人共處日久，佛倫斯基和安娜在生活上的不信任日增。安娜感到很難過，認為情人為前途名譽離她而去，沮喪失望之下，安娜為處罰佛倫斯基，在火車駛近時跳下火車月臺自殺。葬禮之後，亞歷山大·卡列寧帶走她的女兒，佛倫斯基受到良心的譴責，大病一場，後來志願從軍，前往巴爾幹參戰，但求一死。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-創作背景資料
在世界文學的巍巍群山中，堪與莎士比亞、歌德、巴爾紮剋這幾座高峰比肩而立的俄國作傢當首推列夫·托爾斯泰。托爾斯泰是一位有思想的藝術傢，也是一位博學的藝術大師。他的作品展現的社會畫面之廣阔，藴含的思想之豐饒，融會的藝術、語言、哲學、歷史、民俗乃至自然科學等各種知識之廣博，常常令人望洋興嘆。《安娜·卡列尼娜》是他的一部既美不勝收而又博大精深的巨製。
巨大的思想和藝術價值，使得這部巨著一發表便引起巨大社會反響。托爾斯泰並沒有簡單地寫一個男女私通的故事，而是通過這個故事揭示了俄國社會中婦女的地位，並由此來鞭撻它的不合理性。作品描寫了個人感情需要與社會道德之間的衝突。1877年，小說首版發行。據同代人稱，它不啻是引起了“一場真正的社會大爆炸”，它的各個章節都引起了整個社會的“蹺足”註視，及無休無止的“議論、推崇、非難和爭吵，仿佛事情關涉到每個人最切身的問題”。
但不久，社會就公認它是一部了不起的巨著，它所達到的高度是俄國文學從未達到過的。偉大作傢陀思妥耶夫斯基興奮地評論道：“這是一部盡善盡美的藝術傑作，現代歐洲文學中沒有一部同類的東西可以和它相比！”他甚至稱托爾斯泰為“藝術之神”。而書中的女主人公安娜·卡列尼娜則成為世界文學史上最優美豐滿的女性形象之一。這個資産階級婦女解放的先鋒，以自己的方式追求個性的解放和真誠的愛情，雖然由於制度的桎梏，她的悲劇衹能以失敗而告終。但她以內心體驗的深刻與感情的強烈真摯，以蓬勃的生命力和悲劇性命運而扣人心弦。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》的構思始於1870年，而到1873年托爾斯泰纔開始動筆。這是他一生中精神睏頓的時期。最初，托爾斯泰是想寫一個上流社會已婚婦女失足的故事，但隨着寫作的深入，原來的構思不斷被修改。小說的初步創作不過僅用了短短的50天時間便得以完成，然而托爾斯泰很不滿意，他又花費了數十倍的時間來不斷修正，前後經過12次大的改動，遲至4年之後纔正式出版。這時，小說廢棄的手稿高達1米多！“全部都應當改寫，再改寫”，這是托爾斯泰經常挂在嘴邊的一句話。顯然，一部《安娜·卡列尼娜》與其說是寫出來的，不如說是改出來的。
正是在作者近乎苛刻的追求中，小說的重心有了巨大的轉移，安娜由最初構思中的“失了足的女人”（她趣味惡劣、賣弄風情，品行不端），變成了一個品格高雅、敢於追求真正的愛情與幸福的“叛女”形象，從而成為世界文學中最具反抗精神的女性之一。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》通過安娜追求愛情而失敗的悲劇，列文在農村面臨危機而進行的改革與探索這兩條綫索，描繪了俄國從莫斯科到外省鄉村廣阔而豐富多彩的圖景，先後描寫了150多個人物，是一部社會百科全書式的作品。小說藝術上最突出的特點是首次成功地采用了兩條平行綫索互相對照、相輔相成的“拱門式” 結構，並在心理描寫上細緻入微、精妙絶倫。小說中那大段的人物內心獨白，無疑都是現實主義描寫的典範。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-人物形象
安娜
《安娜·卡列尼娜》是由兩條主要的平行綫索和一條聯結性次要綫索結構而成的，整體上反映了農奴製改革後“一切都翻了一個身，一切都剛剛安排下來”的那個時代在政治、經濟、道德、心理等方面的矛盾。小說通過安娜—— 卡列寧——渥倫斯基綫索展示了封建主義家庭關係的瓦解和道德的淪喪；通過列文——吉提綫索描繪出資本主義勢力侵入農村後，地主經濟面臨危機的情景，揭示出作者執着地探求出路的痛苦心情。而道麗——奧勃朗斯基這一次要綫索巧妙地聯結兩條主綫，在家庭思想上三條綫索相互對應、參照，勾勒出三種不同類型的家庭模式和生活方式。作者以這種建築學而自豪，圓拱將兩座大廈聯結得天衣無縫，“使人覺察不出什麽地方是拱頂”。
主人公安娜·卡列尼娜是世界文學史上最優美豐滿的女性形象之一。她以內心體驗的深刻與感情的強烈真摯，以蓬勃的生命力和悲劇性命運而扣人心弦。
安娜第一次出現時的音容笑貌令人難以忘懷：她姿態端麗、溫雅，一雙濃密的睫毛掩映下的眼睛中“有一股被壓抑的生氣在她的臉上流露……仿佛有一種過剩的生命力洋溢在她的全身心，違反她的意志”，在眼神和微笑中顯現出來。在這幅出色的肖像中展現了安娜的精神美，也提示我們去探究她的生活之謎。安娜父母早逝，在姑母包辦下嫁給了比她大二十歲的大官僚卡列寧。婚後在宗法思想支配下她曾安於天命，衹是把全部感情寄托在兒子身上。渥倫斯基喚醒了她晚熟的愛情。她渴望自由而大膽地愛，不願像別特西公爵夫人那樣在傢宴上公開接待情人；也不願接受丈夫的建議仍然保持表面的夫妻關係，偷偷與情人往來；終於衝出家庭與渥倫斯基結合，公然與整個上流社會對抗。從此安娜失去了一個貴族婦女在社交界的一切地位和權利，除了渥倫斯基的愛，她一無所有，因此，她熱烈而執着地獻身於這種愛。確實，在國外，在渥倫斯基的莊園裏，安娜曾體驗過短暫的“不可原諒的幸福”。她丟棄母親的天職，但內心無法平息因失去愛子而産生的悲傷；她想昂起驕傲的頭，宣稱她是幸福的女人，但卻擺脫不掉有罪的妻子的意識。她的靈魂一直受到折磨。而孤註一擲的、囿於自我的對渥倫斯基的愛又不可能得到相應的感情反響，安娜絶望了，她在臨終前滿含怨憤地喊出：“一切全是虛偽、全是謊言、全是欺騙、全是罪惡。”
安娜的形象在作傢創作過程中有過極大變化：從一個低級趣味的失足女人改寫成真誠、嚴肅、寧為玉碎、不為瓦全的女性。托爾斯泰通過安娜的愛情、家庭悲劇寄寓了他對當時動蕩的俄國社會中人的命運和倫理道德準則的思考。作傢歌頌人的生命力，贊揚人性的合理要求；同時，他又堅决否定一切政治、社會活動（包括婦女解放運動）對改善人們命運的作用，強調母親——婦女天職的重要性。作傢世界觀的矛盾構成安娜形象的復雜性。一百多年來各國作傢按自己的理解把安娜搬上舞臺、銀幕、熒光屏。安娜形象一直激動着不同時代、不同民族的讀者，這正說明安娜形象的藝術生命力是不朽的。
列文
列文則是托爾斯泰式主人公中自傳性特別強的一個人物，他在托爾斯泰的創作中起着承前啓後的作用，在他身上藝術地再現了作傢世界觀激變前夕的思想感情和生活感受，從結構安排來看，列文的幸福家庭與安娜的不幸家庭互為對照，但從思想探索來看，列文婚後卻産生了精神危機，他為貴族階級自甘敗落而憂心忡忡。他研究勞動力在農業生産中的作用，製定“不流血的革命”方案，探討人生的目的，但卻毫無出路。羅曼·羅蘭指出，列文不僅體現了托爾斯泰看待事物的既保守又民主的觀點，而且“列文和吉提的戀愛，他倆婚後的頭幾年生活，就是作傢自己家庭生活回憶的搬演。同樣，列文哥哥之死也是托爾斯泰的哥哥德米特裏之死的痛苦追憶”。而作品的尾聲“則是作者本人趨嚮精神革命的過渡”。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》-主題思想
關於列夫·托爾斯泰，馬原有一個說法，他認為托爾斯泰是小說史上爭議最少的作傢。這裏所說的爭議最少，指的是他在文學史上的地位。也就是說，你可以喜歡或不喜歡托爾斯泰的作品，但似乎無人能夠否認他作為一位傑出思想傢和第一流小說傢的地位。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》在列夫·托爾斯泰的所有作品中，是寫得最好的。《戰爭與和平》也許更波瀾壯闊、更雄偉、更有氣勢，但它不如《安娜·卡列尼娜》那麽純粹、那麽完美。順便說一句，列夫·托爾斯泰並不是一個出色的文體傢，但他的文體的精美與和諧無與倫比，這並非來自作者對小說修辭、技巧、敘述方式的刻意追求，而僅僅源於藝術上的直覺。
在《安娜·卡列尼娜》這部小說中，列夫·托爾斯泰塑造了許多在文學史上光芒四射的人物：安娜、渥倫斯基、吉提、列文、卡列寧、奧布浪斯基公爵……在這些人物中，惟一一個在生活中左右逢源，帶有點喜劇色彩的就是奧布浪斯基公爵，其他的人物無不與死亡主題有關。如果我們簡單地歸納一下，這部作品主要寫了兩個故事：其一，是安娜與渥倫斯基從相識、熱戀到毀滅的過程，以及圍繞這一進程的所有社會關係的糾葛，其二是列文的故事以及他在宗教意義上的展開個人思考。
正如那句著名的開場白所顯示的一樣，作者對現實的思考是以家庭婚姻為基本單位而展開的，至少涉及到了四種婚姻或愛情答案：卡列寧夫婦，安娜和渥倫斯基，奧布浪斯基夫婦，列文與吉提。每一個答案都意味着罪惡和災難。安娜是惟一經歷了兩種不同婚姻(愛情)形式的人物。在作者所賦予的安娜的性格中，我以為激情和活力是其基本的內涵，正是這種壓抑不住的活力使美貌純潔的吉提相形見絀；正是這種被喚醒的激情使她與卡列寧的婚姻、甚至彼得堡習以為常的社交生活、甚至包括孩子謝遼沙都黯然失色。
與這種激情與活力相伴而來的是不顧一切的勇氣。當小說中寫到渥倫斯基在賽馬會上摔下馬來，安娜因失聲大叫而暴露了"姦情"之時，對丈夫說出下面這段話是需要一點勇氣的，“我愛他，我是他的情婦……隨你高興怎麽樣把我處置吧。”托爾斯泰對這種激情真是太熟悉了，我們不妨想一想《戰爭與和平》中的娜塔莎，《復活》中的卡秋莎，還有蟄伏於作者心中的那頭強壯的熊--它的咆哮聲一直睏擾着列夫·托爾斯泰。
馬丁·杜伽爾曾認為，托爾斯泰是最具洞察力的作傢，他的目光十分銳利，能夠穿透生活的壁壘而發現隱含其中的"真實"。但我卻傾嚮於認為，從根本上來說，托爾斯泰是一個圖解自我觀念的作傢，不管是早期還是晚期作品，主題上的聯繫十分清晰，尤其是《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》兩部巨著，其中的人物、情節、主題多有雷同之處，他的觀念的疆域並不寬廣，他的素材也不豐富，但這並不妨礙托爾斯泰的偉大，正如塞萬提斯的狹隘主題並不妨礙《堂吉訶德》的偉大一樣。小說的真實來自他的智慧，敏感而浩瀚的心靈，而更為重要的是他的誠實。維特根斯坦在讀完《哈澤·穆拉特》以後曾感慨地說： “他(托爾斯泰)是一個真正的人，他有權寫作。”
托爾斯泰與《安娜·卡列尼娜》
關於列夫·托爾斯泰，馬原有一個說法，他認為托爾斯泰是小說史上爭議最少的作傢。我理解他的意思，這裏所說的爭議最少，指的是他在文學史上的地位。也就是說，你可以喜歡或不喜歡托爾斯泰的作品，但似乎無人能夠否認他作為一位傑出思想傢和第一流小說傢的地位。
在我的學生中間，對托爾斯泰不屑一顧的大有人在。有一次碰到一位學生，依我看他的導師是一名頗有學問的俄國文學專傢，不知何故，該生卻對恩師頗為不滿，提出是否可以轉到我的名下，讓我給他指導。我問他為何要更換導師，他便列舉了原導師的幾個罪狀，其中一條是：他竟然讓我去讀什麽《安娜·卡列尼娜》。可見，在這些言必稱美國的學生們的頭腦中，老托爾斯泰顯然已經是一個不中用的古董了。我對他說，導師就不必換了。因為如果我當你的導師，第一本推薦的書恐怕還是《安娜·卡列尼娜》。
《安娜·卡列尼娜》不僅是我最喜歡的長篇小說，而且我也認為，在列夫·托爾斯泰的所有作品中，它也是寫得最好的。《戰爭與和平》也許更波瀾壯闊、更雄偉、更有氣勢，但它不如《安娜·卡列尼娜》那麽純粹、那麽完美。順便說一句，列夫·托爾斯泰並不是一個出色的文體傢，但他的文體的精美與和諧無與倫比，這並非來自作者對小說修辭、技巧、敘述方式的刻意追求，而僅僅源於藝術上的直覺。
在《安娜·卡列尼娜》這部小說中，列夫·托爾斯泰塑造了許多在文學史上光芒四射的人物：安娜、渥倫斯基、吉提、列文、卡列寧、奧布浪斯基公爵……在這些人物中，惟一一個在生活中左右逢源，帶有點喜劇色彩的就是奧布浪斯基公爵，其他的人物無不與死亡主題有關。如果我們簡單地歸納一下，這部作品主要寫了兩個故事：其一，是安娜與渥倫斯基從相識、熱戀到毀滅的過程，以及圍繞這一進程的所有社會關係的糾葛，其二是列文的故事以及他在宗教意義上的展開個人思考。
正如那句著名的開場白所顯示的一樣，作者對現實的思考是以家庭婚姻為基本單位而展開的，至少涉及到了四種婚姻或愛情答案：卡列寧夫婦，安娜和渥倫斯基，奧布浪斯基夫婦，列文與吉提。每一個答案都意味着罪惡和災難。安娜是惟一經歷了兩種不同婚姻(愛情)形式的人物。在作者所賦予的安娜的性格中，我以為激情和活力是其基本的內涵，正是這種壓抑不住的活力使美貌純潔的吉提相形見絀；正是這種被喚醒的激情使她與卡列寧的婚姻、甚至彼得堡習以為常的社交生活、甚至包括孩子謝遼沙都黯然失色。
與這種激情與活力相伴而來的是不顧一切的勇氣。當小說中寫到渥倫斯基在賽馬會上摔下馬來，安娜因失聲大叫而暴露了“姦情”之時，對丈夫說出下面這段話是需要一點勇氣的，“我愛他，我是他的情婦……隨你高興怎麽樣把我處置吧。”托爾斯泰對這種激情真是太熟悉了，我們不妨想一想《戰爭與和平》中的娜塔莎，《復活》中的卡秋莎，還有蟄伏於作者心中的那頭強壯的熊——它的咆哮聲一直睏擾着列夫·托爾斯泰。
馬丁·杜伽爾曾認為，托爾斯泰是最具洞察力的作傢，他的目光十分銳利，能夠穿透生活的壁壘而發現隱含其中的"真實"。但我卻傾嚮於認為，從根本上來說，托爾斯泰是一個圖解自我觀念的作傢，不管是早期還是晚期作品，主題上的聯繫十分清晰，尤其是《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》兩部巨著，其中的人物、情節、主題多有雷同之處，他的觀念的疆域並不寬廣，他的素材也不豐富，但這並不妨礙托爾斯泰的偉大，正如塞萬提斯的狹隘主題並不妨礙《堂吉訶德》的偉大一樣。小說的真實來自他的智慧，敏感而浩瀚的心靈，而更為重要的是他的誠實。維特根斯坦在讀完《哈澤·穆拉特》以後曾感慨地說：“他(托爾斯泰)是一個真正的人，他有權寫作。”
Widely regarded as a pinnacle in realist fiction, Tolstoy considered Anna Karenina his first true novel, when he came to consider War and Peace to be more than a novel. The character of Anna was likely inspired, in part, by Maria Hartung (Russian spelling Maria Gartung, 1832–1919), the elder daughter of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.[citation needed] Soon after meeting her at dinner, Tolstoy began reading Pushkin's prose and once had a fleeting daydream of "a bare exquisite aristocratic elbow", which proved to be the first intimation of Anna's character.
Although Russian critics dismissed the novel on its publication as a "trifling romance of high life", Fyodor Dostoevsky declared it to be "flawless as a work of art". His opinion was shared by Vladimir Nabokov, who especially admired "the flawless magic of Tolstoy's style", and by William Faulkner, who described the novel as "the best ever written".[citation needed] The novel is currently enjoying popularity as demonstrated by a recent poll of 125 contemporary authors by J. Peder Zane, published in 2007 in The Top Ten, which declared that Anna Karenina is the "greatest novel ever written".
The title: Anna Karenin vs Anna Karenina
The title has been translated as both Anna Karenin and Anna Karenina. The first instance naturalizes the Russian name into English, whereas the second is a direct transliteration of the actual Russian name. As Vladimir Nabokov explains: "In Russian, a surname ending in a consonant acquires a final 'a' (except for the cases of such names that cannot be declined) when designating a woman".
Nabokov favours the first convention - removing the Russian 'a' to naturalize the name into English - but subsequent translators mostly allow Anna's actual Russian name to stand. Larissa Volokhonsky, herself a Russian, prefers the second option, while other translators like Constance Garnett and Rosemary Edmonds prefer the first solution.
Main characters
* Anna Arkadyevna Karenina – Stepan Oblonsky's sister, Karenin's wife and Vronsky's lover. She is also a minor character in War and Peace. [citation needed]
* Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky – Lover of Anna
* Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky ("Stiva") – a civil servant and Anna's brother.
* Princess Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya ("Dolly") – Stepan's wife
* Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin – a senior statesman and Anna's husband, twenty years her senior.
* Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin ("Kostya") – Kitty's suitor and then husband.
* Nikolai Levin – Konstantin's brother
* Sergius Ivanich Koznyshev – Konstantin's half-brother
* Princess Ekaterina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya ("Kitty") – Dolly's younger sister and later Levin's wife
* Princess Elizaveta ("Betsy") – Anna's wealthy, morally loose society friend and Vronsky's cousin
* Countess Lidia Ivanovna – Leader of a high society circle that includes Karenin, and shuns Princess Betsy and her circle. She maintains an interest in the mystical and spiritual
* Countess Vronskaya – Vronsky's mother
* Sergei Alexeyitch Karenin ("Seryozha") – Anna and Karenin's son
* Anna ("Annie") – Anna and Vronsky's daughter
* Varenka – a young orphaned girl, semi-adopted by an ailing Russian noblewoman, whom Kitty befriends while abroad
Plot summary
The novel is divided into eight parts. The novel begins with one of its most quoted lines:
“ Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ”
Part 1
The novel opens with a scene introducing Prince Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky, "Stiva", a Moscow aristocrat and civil servant who has been unfaithful to his wife Darya Alexandrovna, nicknamed "Dolly". Dolly has discovered his affair - with the family's governess - and the house and family are in turmoil. Stiva's affair and his reaction to his wife's distress shows an amorous personality that he cannot seem to suppress.
In the midst of the turmoil, Stiva reminds the household that his married sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina is coming to visit from Saint Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Stiva's childhood friend Konstantin Dmitrievich Levin ("Kostya") arrives in Moscow with the aim of proposing to Dolly's youngest sister Princess Katerina Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, "Kitty". Levin is a passionate, restless but shy aristocratic landowner who, unlike his Moscow friends, chooses to live in the country on his large estate. He discovers that Kitty is also being pursued by Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky, an army officer.
At the railway station to meet Anna, Stiva bumps into Vronsky. Vronsky is there to meet his mother. Anna and the Countess Vronskaya have travelled together in the same carriage and talked together. As the family members are reunited, and Vronsky sees Anna for the first time, a railway worker accidentally falls in front of a train and is killed. Anna interprets this as an "evil omen." Vronsky is infatuated with Anna. Anna, who is uneasy about leaving her young son, Seryozha, alone for the first time, talks openly and emotionally to Dolly about Stiva's affair and convinces Dolly that her husband still loves her, despite his infidelity. Dolly is moved by Anna's speeches and decides to forgive Stiva.
Dolly's youngest sister, Kitty, comes to visit her sister and Anna. Kitty, just 18, is in her first season as a debutante and is expected to make an excellent match with a man of her social standing. Vronsky has been paying her considerable attention, and she expects to dance with him at a ball that evening. Kitty is very struck by Anna's beauty and personality and is infatuated with her. When Levin proposes to Kitty at her home, she clumsily turns him down, because she believes she is in love with Vronsky and that he will propose to her.
At the ball, Vronsky pays Anna considerable attention, and dances with her, choosing her as a partner instead of Kitty, who is shocked and heartbroken. Kitty realises that Vronsky has fallen in love with Anna, and that despite his overt flirtations with her he has no intention of marrying her and in fact views his attentions to her as mere amusement, believing that she does the same.
Anna, shaken by her emotional and physical response to Vronsky, returns at once to Saint Petersburg. Vronsky travels on the same train. During the overnight journey, the two meet and Vronsky confesses his love. Anna refuses him, although she is deeply affected by his attentions to her.
Levin, crushed by Kitty's refusal, returns to his estate farm, abandoning any hope of marriage, and Anna returns to her husband Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a senior government official, and their son Sergei ("Seryozha") in Petersburg.
Tatiana Samoilova as Anna in the 1967 Soviet screen version of Tolstoy's novel.
On seeing her husband for the first time since her encounter with Vronsky, Anna realises that she finds him repulsive, noting the odd way that his ears press against his hat.
Part 2
The Shcherbatskys consult doctors over Kitty's health which has been failing since she realizes that Vronsky did not love her and that he did not intend to propose marriage to her, and that she refused and hurt Levin, whom she cares for, in vain. A specialist doctor advises that Kitty should go abroad to a health spa to recover. Dolly speaks to Kitty and understands that she is suffering because of Vronsky and Levin. Kitty, humiliated by Vronsky and tormented by her rejection of Levin, upsets her sister by referring to Stiva's infidelity and says she could never love a man who betrayed her.
Stiva stays with Levin on his country estate when he makes a sale of a plot of land, to provide funds for his expensive city lifestyle. Levin is upset at the poor deal he makes with the buyer and his lack of understanding of the rural lifestyle.
In St. Petersburg, Anna begins to spend more time with the fashionable socialite and gossip Princess Betsy and her circle, in order to meet Vronsky, Betsy's cousin. Vronsky continues to pursue Anna. Although Anna initially tries to reject him, she eventually succumbs to his attentions.
Karenin warns Anna of the impropriety of paying too much attention to Vronsky in public, which is becoming a subject of society gossip. He is concerned about his and his wife's public image, although he believes that Anna is above suspicion.
Vronsky, a keen horseman, takes part in a steeplechase event, during which he rides his mare Frou-Frou too hard and she falls and breaks her back. Vronsky escapes with minimal injuries but is devastated that his mare must be shot. Anna tells him that she is pregnant with his child, and is unable to hide her distress when Vronsky falls from the racehorse. Karenin is also present at the races and remarks to her that her behaviour is improper. Anna, in a state of extreme distress and emotion, confesses her affair to her husband. Karenin asks her to break off the affair to avoid society gossip and believes that their relationship can then continue as previously.
Kitty goes with her mother to a resort at a German spa to recover from her ill health. There they meet the Pietist Madame Stahl and the saintly Varenka, her adopted daughter. Influenced by Varenka, Kitty becomes extremely pious, but is disillusioned by her father`s criticism. She then returns to Moscow.
Part 3
Levin continues his work on his large country estate, a setting closely tied to his spiritual thoughts and struggles. Levin wrestles with the idea of falseness, wondering how he should go about ridding himself of it, and criticising what he feels is falseness in others. He develops ideas relating to agriculture and the unique relationship between the agricultural labourer and his native land and culture. He believes that the agricultural reforms of Europe will not work in Russia because of the unique culture and personality of the Russian peasant.
Levin pays Dolly a visit, and she attempts to understand what happened between him and Kitty and to explain Kitty's behaviour to him. Levin is very agitated by Dolly's talk about Kitty, and he begins to feel distant from her as he perceives her behaviour towards her children as false. Levin resolves to forget Kitty and contemplates the possibility of marriage to a peasant woman. However, a chance sighting of Kitty in her carriage as she travels to Dolly's house makes Levin realise he still loves her.
In St. Petersburg, Karenin crushes Anna by refusing to separate from her. He insists that their relationship remain as it was and threatens to take away their son Seryozha if she continues to pursue her affair with Vronsky.
Part 4
Anna continues to pursue her affair with Vronsky. Karenin begins to find the situation intolerable. He talks with a lawyer about obtaining a divorce. In Russia at that time, divorce could only be requested by the innocent party in an affair, and required either that the guilty party confessed (which would ruin Anna's position in society) or that the guilty party was discovered in the act. Karenin forces Anna to give him some letters written to her by Vronsky as proof of the affair. However, Anna's brother Stiva argues against it and persuades Karenin to speak with Dolly first.
Dolly broaches the subject with Karenin and asks him to reconsider his plans to divorce Anna. She seems to be unsuccessful, but Karenin changes his plans after hearing that Anna is dying after a difficult childbirth. At her bedside, Karenin forgives Vronsky. Vronsky, embarrassed by Karenin's magnanimity, attempts suicide by shooting himself. He fails in his attempt but wounds himself badly.
Anna recovers, having given birth to a daughter, Anna ("Annie"). Although her husband has forgiven her, and has become attached to the new baby, Anna cannot bear living with him. She hears that Vronsky is about to leave for a military posting in Tashkent and becomes desperate. Stiva finds himself pleading to Karenin on her behalf to free her by giving her a divorce. Vronsky is intent on leaving for Tashkent, but changes his mind after seeing Anna.
The couple leave for Europe - leaving behind Anna's son Seryozha - without obtaining a divorce.
Much more straightforward is Stiva's matchmaking with Levin: he arranges a meeting between Levin and Kitty which results in their reconciliation and betrothal.
Part 5
Levin and Kitty marry and immediately go to start their new life together on Levin's country estate. The couple are happy but do not have a very smooth start to their married life and take some time to get used to each other. Levin feels some dissatisfaction at the amount of time Kitty wants to spend with him and is slightly scornful of her preoccupation with domestic matters, which he feels are too prosaic and not compatible with his romantic ideas of love.
A few months later, Levin learns that his brother Nikolai is dying of consumption. Levin wants to go to him, and is initially angry and put out that Kitty wishes to accompany him. Levin feels that Kitty, whom he has placed on a pedestal, should not come down to earth and should not mix with people from a lower class. Levin assumes her insistence on coming must relate to a fear of boredom from being left alone, despite her true desire to support her husband in a difficult time. Kitty persuades him to take her with him after much discussion, where she proves a great help nursing Nikolai for weeks over his slow death. She also discovers she is pregnant.
In Europe, Vronsky and Anna struggle to find friends who will accept their situation. Whilst Anna is happy to be finally alone with Vronsky, he feels suffocated. They cannot socialize with Russians of their own social set and find it difficult to amuse themselves. Vronsky, who believed that being with Anna in freedom was the key to his happiness, finds himself increasingly bored and unsatisfied. He takes up painting, and makes an attempt to patronize an émigré Russian artist of genius. Vronsky cannot see that his own art lacks talent and passion, and that his clever conversation about art is an empty shell. Bored and restless, Anna and Vronsky decide to return to Russia.
In Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky stay in one of the best hotels but take separate suites. It becomes clear that whilst Vronsky is able to move in Society, Anna is barred from it. Even her old friend, Princess Betsy - who has had affairs herself - evades her company. Anna starts to become very jealous and anxious that Vronsky no longer loves her.
Karenin is comforted – and influenced – by the strong-willed Countess Lidia Ivanovna, an enthusiast of religious and mystic ideas fashionable with the upper classes. She counsels him to keep Seryozha away from Anna and to make him believe that his mother is dead. However, Seryozha refuses to believe that this is true. Anna manages to visit Seryozha unannounced and uninvited on his ninth birthday, but is discovered by Karenin.
Anna, desperate to resume at least in part her former position in Society, attends a show at the theatre at which all of Petersburg's high society are present. Vronsky begs her not to go, but is unable to bring himself to explain to her why she cannot go. At the theatre, Anna is openly snubbed by her former friends, one of whom makes a deliberate scene and leaves the theatre. Anna is devastated.
Unable to find a place for themselves in Petersburg, Anna and Vronsky leave for Vronsky's country estate.
Part 6
Dolly, her mother the Princess Scherbatskaya, and Dolly's children spend the summer with Levin and Kitty on the Levins' country estate. The Levins' life is simple and unaffected, although Levin is uneasy at the "invasion" of so many Scherbatskys. He is able to cope until he is consumed with an intense jealousy when one of the visitors, Veslovsky, flirts openly with the pregnant Kitty. Levin tries to overcome his jealousy but eventually succumbs to it and in an embarrassing scene evicts Veslovsky from his house. Veslovsky immediately goes to stay with Anna and Vronsky, whose estate is close by.
Dolly also pays a short visit to Anna at Vronsky's estate. The difference between the Levins' aristocratic but simple home life and Vronsky's overtly luxurious and lavish country home strikes Dolly, who is unable to keep pace with Anna's fashionable dresses or Vronsky's extravagant spending on the hospital he is building. However, all is not quite well with Anna and Vronsky. Dolly is also struck by Anna's anxious behaviour and new habit of half closing her eyes when she alludes to her difficult position. When Veslovsky flirts openly with Anna, she plays along with him even though she clearly feels uncomfortable. Vronsky makes an emotional request to Dolly, asking her to convince Anna to divorce her husband so that the two might marry and live normally. Dolly broaches the subject with Anna, who appears not to be convinced. However, Anna is becoming intensely jealous of Vronsky, and cannot bear it when he leaves her for short excursions. The two have started to quarrel about this and when Vronsky leaves for several days of provincial elections, a combination of boredom and suspicion convinces Anna she must marry him in order to prevent him from leaving her. She writes to Karenin, and she and Vronsky leave the countryside for Moscow.
Part 7
The Levins are in Moscow for Kitty's confinement. Despite initial reservations, Levin quickly gets used to the fast-paced, expensive and frivolous Moscow society life. He starts to accompany Stiva to his Moscow gentleman's club, where drinking and gambling are popular pastimes. At the club, Levin meets Vronsky and Stiva introduces them. Levin and Stiva pay a visit to Anna, who is occupying her empty days by being a patroness to an orphaned English girl. Levin is uneasy about the visit and not sure it is the proper thing to do, and Anna easily puts Levin under her spell. When he confesses to Kitty where he has been, she accuses him falsely of falling in love with Anna. The couple are reconciled, realising that Moscow life has had a negative, corrupting effect on Levin.
Anna, who has made a habit of inducing the young men who visit her to fall in love with her, cannot understand why she can attract a man like Levin, who has a young and beautiful new wife, but cannot attract Vronsky in the way she wants to. Anna's relationship with Vronsky is under increasing strain, as whilst he can move freely in Society - and continues to spend considerable time doing so to stress to Anna his independence as a man - she is excluded from all her previous social connections. She is estranged from baby Annie, her child with Vronsky and her increasing bitterness, boredom, jealousy and emotional strain cause the couple to argue. Anna uses morphine to help her sleep, a habit we learned she had begun during her time living with Vronsky at his country estate. Now she has become dependent on it.
After a long and difficult labour, Kitty gives birth to a son, Dmitri, nicknamed Mitya. Levin is both extremely moved and horrified by the sight of the tiny, helpless baby.
Stiva visits Karenin to encourage his commendation for a new post he is seeking. During the visit he asks him to grant Anna a divorce, but Karenin's decisions are now governed by a French "clairvoyant" – recommended by Lidia Ivanovna – who apparently has a vision in his sleep during Stiva's visit, and gives Karenin a cryptic message that is interpreted as meaning that he must decline the request for divorce.
Anna becomes increasingly jealous and irrational towards Vronsky, whom she suspects of having love affairs with other women, and of giving in to his mother's plans to marry him off to a rich Society woman. There is a bitter row, and Anna believes that the relationship is over. She starts to think of suicide as an escape from her torments. In her mental and emotional confusion, she sends a telegram to Vronsky asking him to come home to her, and pays a visit to Dolly and Kitty. Anna's confusion overcomes her, and in a parallel to the railway worker's accidental death in part 1, she commits suicide by throwing herself in the path of a train.
Part 8
Stiva gets the job he desired so much, and Karenin takes custody of baby Annie. A group of Russian volunteers, including Vronsky, who does not plan to return alive, depart from Russia to fight in the Orthodox Serbian revolt that has broken out against the Turks. Meanwhile, a lightning storm occurs at Levin's estate while his wife and newborn son are outside, causing him to fear for the safety of both of them, and to realize that he does indeed love his son similarly to how he loves Kitty. Also, Kitty's family concerns, namely, that a man as altruistic as her husband does not consider himself to be a Christian, are also addressed when Levin decides after talking to a peasant that devotion to living righteously as decreed by the Christian God is the only justifiable reason for living. After coming to this decision, but without telling anyone about it, he is initially displeased that this change of thought does not bring with it a complete transformation of his behavior to be more righteous. However, at the end of the book he comes to the conclusion that this fact, and the fact that there are other religions with similar views on goodness that are not Christian, are acceptable and that neither of these things diminish the fact that now his life can be meaningfully oriented toward goodness.
Style
Tolstoy's style in Anna Karenina is considered by many critics to be transitional, forming a bridge between the realist and modernist novel. The novel is narrated from a third-person-omniscient perspective, shifting between the perspectives of several major characters, though most frequently focusing on the opposing lifestyles and attitudes of its central protagonists of Anna and Levin. As such, each of the novel's eight sections contains internal variations in tone: it assumes a relaxed voice when following Stepan Oblonsky's thoughts and actions and a much more tense voice when describing Levin's social encounters. Much of the novel's seventh section depicts Anna's thoughts fluidly, following each one of her ruminations and free associations with its immediate successor. This groundbreaking use of stream-of-consciousness would be utilised by such later authors as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.
Also of significance is Tolstoy's use of real events in his narrative, to lend greater verisimilitude to the fictional events of his narrative. Characters debate significant sociopolitical issues affecting Russia in the latter half of the nineteenth century, such as the place and role of the Russian peasant in society, education reform, and women's rights. Tolstoy's depiction of the characters in these debates, and of their arguments, allows him to communicate his own political beliefs. Characters often attend similar social functions to those which Tolstoy attended, and he includes in these passages his own observations of the ideologies, behaviors, and ideas running through contemporary Russia through the thoughts of Levin. The broad array of situations and ideas depicted in Anna Karenina allows Tolstoy to present a treatise on his era's Russia, and, by virtue of its very breadth and depth, all of human society. This stylistic technique, as well as the novel's use of perspective, greatly contributes to the thematic structure of Anna Karenina.[citation needed]
Major themes
Anna Karenina is commonly thought to explore the themes of hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and the agrarian connection to land in contrast to the lifestyles of the city. Translator Rosemary Edmonds wrote that Tolstoy doesn't explicitly moralise in the book, he allows his themes to emerge naturally from the "vast panorama of Russian life." She also writes that a key message is that "no one may build their happiness on another's pain," which is why things don't work out for Anna.
Levin is often considered as a semi-autobiographical portrayal of Tolstoy's own beliefs, struggles and life events. Tolstoy's first name is "Lev", and the Russian surname "Levin" means "of Lev". According to footnotes in the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation, the viewpoints Levin supports throughout the novel in his arguments match Tolstoy's outspoken views on the same issues. Moreover, according to W. Gareth Jones, Levin proposed to Kitty in the same way as Tolstoy to Sophie Behrs. Additionally, Levin's request that his fiancée read his diary as a way of disclosing his faults and previous sexual encounters, parallels Tolstoy's own requests to his fiancée Sophie Behrs.
Anna Karenina and Tolstoy's A Confession
Alla Tarasova as Anna Karenina in 1937
Many of the novel's themes can also be found in Tolstoy's A Confession, his first-person rumination about the nature of life and faith, written just two years after the publication of Anna Karenina.
In this book, Tolstoy describes his dissatisfaction with the hypocrisy of his social class:
“ Every time I tried to display my innermost desires – a wish to be morally good – I met with contempt and scorn, and as soon as I gave in to base desires I was praised and encouraged. ”
Tolstoy also details the acceptability of adulterous "liaisons" in aristocratic Russian society:
“ A dear old aunt of mine, the purest of creatures, with whom I lived, was always saying that she wished for nothing as much as that I would have a relationship with a married woman. "Rien ne forme un jeune homme comme une liaison avec une femme comme il faut." ("Nothing educates a young man better than an affair with a woman established in society.") ”
Another theme in Anna Karenina is that of the aristocratic habit of speaking French instead of Russian, which Tolstoy suggests is another form of society's falseness. When Dolly insists on speaking French to her young daughter, Tanya, she begins to seem false and tedious to Levin, who finds himself unable to feel at ease in her house.
In a passage that could be interpreted as a sign of Anna's eventual redemption in Tolstoy's eyes, the narrator explains:
“ For in the end what are we, who are convinced that suicide is obligatory and yet cannot resolve to commit it, other than the weakest, the most inconsistent and, speaking frankly, the most stupid of people, making such a song and dance with our banalities? ”
A Confession contains many other autobiographical insights into the themes of Anna Karenina. A public domain version of it is here.
Film, television, and theatrical adaptations
For more details on this topic, see Adaptations of Anna Karenina.
* Operas based on Anna Karenina have been written by Sassano (Naples, 1905), Leoš Janáček (unfinished, 1907), Granelli (1912), E. Malherbe (unperformed, 1914), Jeno Hubay (Budapest, 1915), Robbiani (Rome, 1924), Goldbach (1930), Iain Hamilton (London, 1981) and David Carlson (Miami, 2007).
* Love, a 1927 silent film based loosely on the novel. The film starred Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.
* Anna Karenina, a critically acclaimed 1935 film, directed by Clarence Brown. The film stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, and Maureen O'Sullivan.
* Anna Karenina, a 1948 film directed by Julien Duvivier with Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson and Kieron Moore.
* "MGM Theater Of The Air - Anna Karenina (Radio Broadcast)" (Broadcast 12/09/1949; on American radio, starring Marlene Dietrich
* "Nahr al-Hob" (or River of Love; 1960; an Egyptian movie starring Omar Sharif and Faten Hamama
* Anna Karenina, a 1967 Russian film directed by Aleksandr Zarkhi and starring Tatyana Samojlova, Nikolai Gritsenko and Vasili Lanovoy.
* Anna Karenina (1968) a ballet composed by Rodion Shchedrin
* Anna Karenina, a 1977 TV version in ten episodes. Made by the BBC it was directed by Basil Coleman and starred Nicola Pagett, Eric Porter and Stuart Wilson.
* Anna Karenina, a 1985 TV film directed by Simon Langton and starring Jacqueline Bisset, Paul Scofield and Christopher Reeve.
* Anna Karenina, a 1992 Broadway musical starring Ann Crumb and John Cunningham
* Anna Karenina, a 1997 British-American production filmed in St. Peterburg, Russia, by director Bernard Rose with Sophie Marceau as Anna Karenina.
* Anna Karenina, a 2000 TV version in four episodes. It was directed by David Blair and starred Helen McCrory, Stephen Dillane and Kevin McKidd.
* Anna Karenina a 2005 ballet with choreography by Boris Eifman and music drawn from the works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Anna Karenina in literature
* Quirk Classics transformed Anna Karenina into the book 'Android Karenina' (other past transformations have included 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies' and 'Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters')
* The novel is referenced in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle.
* Repeated reference is made explicitly to Leo Tolstoy and Anna Karenin in Muriel Barbery's Elegance of the Hedgehog
* Anna Karenina is also mentioned in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series Don't Go To Sleep.
* Mikhail Bulgakov makes reference to the Oblonsky household and Tolstoy in The Master and Margarita.
* In Jasper Fforde's novel Lost in a Good Book, a recurring joke is two unnamed "crowd-scene" characters from Anna Karenina discussing its plot.
* In the short-story "Sleep" by Haruki Murakami, the main character, an insomniac housewife, spends much time reading through and considering "Anna Karenina". Furthermore, in the short story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo", by the same author, the character of Frog references "Anna Karenina" when discussing how to beat Worm.
* Martin Amis's character Lev, in the novel House of Meetings, compares the protagonist with Anna Karenina's Vronsky.
* In the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being Anna Karenina is compared with the novel like beauty of life, and Tereza arrives at Tomas's apartment with a copy of the book under her arm. In addition, Tereza and Tomas have a pet dog named Karenin, after Anna's husband.
* In the novel What Happened to Anna K. Irina Reyn loosely transfers the Anna Karenina story to a setting in modern-day New York City.
* Anna Karenina plays a central role in Nilo Cruz's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics (2002), set in 1929, as a new lector, Juan Julian, reads the text as background for cigar rollers in the Ybor City section of Tampa, FL. As he reads the story of adultery, the workers' passions are inflamed, and end in tragedy like Anna's.
* In "The Slippery Slope", the 10th book in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans Violet, Klaus and the third Quagmire triplet Quigley need to use the central theme of "Anna Karenina" as the final password to open the Vernacularly Fastened Door leading to the V.F.D. Headquarters. Klaus remembered how his mother had read it to him one summer when he was young as a summer reading book. Klaus summarized the theme with these words: "The central theme of Anna Karenina is that a rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy." Esme Squalor later said she once was supposed to read the book over the summer, but she decided it would never help her in her life and threw it in the fireplace.
* Guns, Germs, and Steel (by Jared Diamond) has a chapter (#9) on the domestication of large mammals, titled "Zebras, Unhappy Marriages, and the Anna Karenina Principle." This chapter begins with a variation on the quote, above.
* in Nicholas Sparks's book The Last Song, the main character, Ronnie, reads Anna Karenina and other Tolstoy books throughout the story.
Further reading
Translations
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Constance Garnett. Still widely reprinted.
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Allen Lane/Penguin, London, 2000)
* Anna Karénina, Translated by Margaret Wettlin (Progress Publishers, 1978)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Joel Carmichael (Bantam Books, New York, 1960)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by David Magarshack (A Signet Classic, New American Library, New York and Scarborough, Ontario, 1961)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1918)
* Anna Karenin, Translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1954)
* Anna Karénina, Translated by Nathan Haskell Dole (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1886)
* Anna Karenina, Translated by Kyril Zinovieff (Oneworld Classics 2008) ISBN 978-1-84749-059-9
Biographical and literary criticism
* Bakhtin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1981)
* Bayley, John, Tolstoy and the Novel (Chatto and Windus, London, 1966)
* Berlin, Isaiah, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966; Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1967)
* Eikhenbaum, Boris, Tolstoi in the Seventies, trans. Albert Kaspin (Ardis, Ann Arbor, 1982)
* Evans, Mary, Anna Karenina (Routledge, London and New York, 1989)
* Gifford, Henry, Tolstoy (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982)
* Gifford, Henry (ed) Leo Tolstoy (Penguin Critical Anthologies, Harmondsworth, 1971)
* Leavis, F. R., Anna Karenina and Other Essays (Chatto and Windus, London, 1967)
* Mandelker, Amy, Framing 'Anna Karenina': Tolstoy, the Woman Question, and the Victorian Novel (Ohio State University Press, Columbus, 1993)
* Morson,Gary Saul, Anna Karenina in our time: seeing more wisely (Yale University Press 2007) read parts at Google-Books
* Nabokov, Vladimir, Lectures on Russian Literature (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1981)
* Orwin, Donna Tussing, Tolstoy's Art and Thought, 1847-1880 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1993)
* Speirs, Logan, Tolstoy and Chekhov (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1971)
* Strakhov, Nikolai, N., "Levin and Social Chaos", in Gibian, ed., (W.W. Norton & Company New York, 2005).
* Steiner, George, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky: An Essay in Contrast (Faber and Faber, London, 1959)
* Thorlby, Anthony, Anna Karenina (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1987)
* Tolstoy, Leo, Correspondence, 2. vols., selected, ed. and trans. by R. F. Christian (Athlone Press, London and Scribner, New York, 1978)
* Tolstoy, Leo, Diaries, ed. and trans. by R. F. Christian (Athlone Press, London and Scribner, New York, 1985)
* Tolstoy, Sophia A., The Diaries of Sophia Tolstoy, ed. O. A. Golinenko, trans. Cathy Porter (Random House, New York, 1985)
* Turner, C. J. G., A Karenina Companion (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, Waterloo, 1993)
* Wasiolek, Edward, Critical Essays on Tolstoy (G. K. Hall, Boston, 1986)
* Wasiolek, Edward, Tolstoy's Major Fiction (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1978)
列夫·尼古拉耶維奇·托爾斯泰(ЛевНиколаевич Толстой)(1828～1910) 19世紀末20世紀初俄國最偉大的文學家，也是世界文學史上最傑出的作傢之一，他的文學作品在世界文學中占有重要的地位。代表作有長篇小說《戰爭與和平》、《安娜·卡列尼娜》、《復活》以及自傳體小說三部麯《幼年》《少年》《青年》。其它作品還有《一個地主的早晨》《哥薩剋》《塞瓦斯托波爾故事集》等。他也創作了大量童話。他以自己一生的辛勤創作，登上了當時歐洲批判現實主義文學的高峰。他還以自己有力的筆觸和卓越的藝術技巧辛勤創作了“世界文學中第一流的作品”，因此被列寧稱頌為具有“最清醒的現實主義”的“天才藝術傢”。
托爾斯泰思想中充滿着矛盾，這種矛盾正是俄國社會錯綜復雜的矛盾的反映，是一個富有正義感的貴族知識分子在尋求新生活中，清醒與軟弱、奮鬥與彷徨、呼喊與苦悶的生動寫照。托爾斯泰的作品縱然其中有反動的和空想的東西，但仍不失為世界進步人類的驕傲，他已被公認是全世界的文學泰鬥。列夫·托爾斯泰被列寧稱為 “俄國革命的鏡子”
Excerpt
"Will the freshness, lightheartedness, the need for love, and strength of faith which you have in childhood ever return? What better time than when the two best virtues -- innocent joy and the boundless desire for love -- were the only motives in life?"
托爾斯泰思想中充滿着矛盾，這種矛盾正是俄國社會錯綜復雜的矛盾的反映，是一個富有正義感的貴族知識分子在尋求新生活中，清醒與軟弱、奮鬥與彷徨、呼喊與苦悶的生動寫照。托爾斯泰的作品縱然其中有反動的和空想的東西，但仍不失為世界進步人類的驕傲，他已被公認是全世界的文學泰鬥。列夫·托爾斯泰被列寧稱為 “俄國革命的鏡子”
Excerpt
"Will the freshness, lightheartedness, the need for love, and strength of faith which you have in childhood ever return? What better time than when the two best virtues -- innocent joy and the boundless desire for love -- were the only motives in life?"
本片描述了在拿破侖指揮軍隊進攻俄國時大動蕩年代中的一段經典愛情故事，是一部史詩般的前蘇聯戰爭巨片。
安德烈不顧懷孕的妻子和年邁的父親，堅持到軍隊服役。戰役失敗，他頽喪回傢，恰逢妻子難産而死，彼埃爾則在父親臨終前被立為財産繼承人，並承襲了其父的伯爵稱號，和貴族庫拉金的女兒艾倫結婚。婚後不久，因兩人性格不合而分居。彼埃爾與羅斯托夫伯爵一傢在去打獵的路上，把沉浸在喪妻之痛的安德烈也拉去打獵，伯爵的女兒娜塔莎·羅斯托娃對安德烈産生了好感。不久，娜塔莎接受了安德烈的求婚，訂立了婚約。
過了一段時間，安德烈重返軍隊。艾倫的弟弟阿納托裏騙得娜塔莎的愛，唆使其與他私奔。俄法戰爭開始，擔任總司令的庫圖佐夫將軍决定暫時放棄莫斯科。在撤退途中，娜塔莎遇到受重傷的安德烈，安德烈諒解了娜塔莎，但他卻因傷勢過重而離開了人世。
戰爭勝利結束後，彼埃爾回到了莫斯科，娜塔莎把自己的命運永遠的與彼埃爾結合在了一起……
《戰爭與和平》-影片評價
這是一部製作精緻、構思嚴謹的巨片。場面壯闊，氣勢磅礴，繼承了前蘇聯在拍攝歷史題材影片方面的傳統，完美地融托爾斯泰原著精神於其中，再現了俄法戰爭時期俄羅斯大地廣阔的歷史畫捲。影片以1812年俄國衛國戰爭為中心，反映了1805年至1820年重大事件，包括奧斯特利茨大戰、波羅底諾會戰、莫斯科大火、拿破侖潰退等。通過對四大家庭以及安德烈、彼埃爾、娜塔莎在戰爭與和平環境中的思想和行動的描寫，展示了當時俄國社會的風貌。耗時五年，據稱耗資一億美元(當時的價錢)的宏偉巨製，試圖極其忠實地復製托爾斯泰的長篇巨著。戰爭戲和舞會戲非常出色，但整體水準參差不齊。影片長達六個半小時，在蘇聯電影史上有着舉足輕重的地位，同時獲奧斯卡最佳外語片奬。1956年的美國版雖然比這部短，但也有 208分鐘，有奧黛麗·赫本、亨利·方達等主演，也是以戰爭場面取勝。1973年英國BBC推出750分鐘的電視版。
《戰爭與和平》-花絮
影片拍攝耗資高達5億6000萬美元，堪稱影史上最昂貴的影片。
影片拍攝得到了蘇聯軍方的大力協助，甚至軍方試圖讓片中兵力盡量與實際戰役的參戰人數基本相同。在世界影史上，本片成為動用臨時演員最多的影片之一，超過本片的衹有1982年的《甘地傳》，參加該片拍攝的臨時演員多達30萬人。
1981年3月，本片在墨西哥電視一臺和二臺首次播出，創下了電視臺播放最長影片的吉尼斯世界紀錄。
1958年，好萊塢著名製片人邁剋爾·托德(Michael Todd)訪問莫斯科，他曾提議聯合拍攝本片，但遭到蘇聯政府的拒絶。
《戰爭與和平》-精彩對白
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: Natasha... I love you too much. More than anything in the world.
安德烈王子：娜塔莎……我太愛你了。超過這世上的一切。
Natasha Rostova: And I! But why too much?
娜塔莎：我也是！但為什麽這麽強烈？
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: Why too much? Well, what do you think? What do you feel in your soul, deep in your soul? Shall I live? What do you think?
安德烈王子：為什麽？你是怎麽想的？在你心靈深處感知到什麽？我會活下去嗎？你是怎麽想的？
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
Natasha Rostova: I'm sure of it.
娜塔莎：當然。
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: How good that would be.
安德烈王子：那會多好。
Narrator: Enough, enough, men. Stop, consider, what are you doing? Into the minds of tired and hungry men on both sides, a flicker of doubt began to creep. Were they to go on slaughtering one another? Kill whom you like, do what you like, but I've had enough. Yet some inexplicable, mysterious power continued to control them, and the terrible business went on, carried out not by the will of individual men.
旁白：夠了，夠了，停下吧，你們想想，你們在做什麽？交戰雙方饑寒交迫筋疲力盡的人們開始思考，一絲疑慮開始蔓延。他們還將互相殺戮嗎？隨便你們為所欲為吧，我已經厭倦了。然而一些無法解釋的、神秘的力量在繼續控製着他們，災難扔在繼續，個人的意願無法改變這一切。
《戰爭與和平》-劇情
日本侵華戰爭期間，小柴健一所在運輸船被炸沉後，他被中國漁民救活，從此留在中國軍隊服務。健一的死亡通知單被送到東京的妻子町子手中，町子和健一幼年時的朋友伍東康吉結合了，帶着健一的兒子茂男幸福地生活在一起。但在空襲中，康吉精神上受到了刺激變得失常。日本投降後，健一回到家乡，他沒有想到，妻子町子已經與康吉結了婚，他在絶望中要求把茂男交給自己撫養，但是茂男已經和康吉有了感情，健一不得不放棄帶走茂男的念頭。...
《戰爭與和平》- 幕後花絮
此片是按照當時占日美軍的意圖拍攝的，是為日本新憲法放棄戰爭作宣傳的影片。但對於兩位導演來說，這正是他們想要拍攝的主題，因為在戰爭期間，他們目睹了戰爭帶給人民的殘酷和不幸生活。此片的重要意義還在於，導演龜井文夫把大量表現中國難民的鏡頭組接在影片中，使日本人民看到了真實的戰爭殘酷的一面，對日本人民的觸動很大，因此廣大日本人民對此片的評價很高，影片在日本電影史上有不可忽視的地位。
《戰爭與和平》-小說引言
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
托爾斯泰捲秩浩繁的長篇小說。場面浩大，人物繁多，被稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”，成就非凡。《戰爭與和平》問世至今，一直被人稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”。 這部捲帙浩繁的巨著以史詩般廣阔與雄渾的氣勢，生動 地描寫了1805至1820年俄國社會的重大歷史事件和各個生活領域：“近千個人物，無數的場景，國傢和私人生活的一切可能的領域，歷史，戰爭，人間一切慘劇，各種情欲，人生各個階段，從嬰兒降臨人間的啼聲到氣息奄奄的老人的感情最後迸發，人所能感受到的一切歡樂和痛苦，各種可能的內心思緒，從竊取自己同伴的錢幣的小偷的感覺，到英雄主義的最崇高的衝動和領悟透徹的沉思— —在這幅畫裏都應有盡有。”作者對生活的大面積涵蓋和整體把握，對個別現象與事物整體、個人命運與周圍世界的內在聯繫的充分揭示，使這部小說具有極大的思想和藝術容量。 這是托爾斯泰創作的第一部捲秩浩繁的長篇小說。 作者把戰爭與和平，前綫與後方、國內與國外、軍隊與社會、上層與下層連結起來，既全面反映了時代風貌，又為各式各樣的典型人物創造了極廣阔的典型環境。作者對人物的描寫形象既復雜又豐滿，常用對比的藝術方法來表述，體裁在俄國文學史上是一種創新，也超越了歐洲長篇小說的傳統規範。
《戰爭與和平》-作者簡介
列夫·托爾斯泰（Л.Н.Толстой,Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy,1828—1910)，19世紀俄羅斯文學寫實主義的代表作傢，公認的最偉大的俄羅斯文學家， 《西方正典》作者、美國著名文學教授兼批評傢哈洛·卜倫甚至稱之為“從文藝復興以來，惟一能挑戰荷馬、但丁與莎士比亞的偉大作傢”。對文學擁有“狂戀式愛情”的托爾
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
斯泰，是俄羅斯文學史上創作時間最長、作品數量最多、影響最深遠、地位最崇高的作傢，重情節、重典型、重寫實、重批判的文學時代，在他筆下達到巔峰。長篇巨著《戰爭與和平》、 《安娜·卡列尼娜》 和《復活》是托爾斯泰文學藝術上的三個里程碑。百年來，他的作品被譯為各國文字，銷售量纍積超過5億册，是大師中的大師。
《戰爭與和平》恢弘的構思和卓越的藝術描寫震驚世界文壇，成為舉世公認的世界文學名著和人類寶貴的精神財富。英國作傢毛姆及諾貝爾文學奬得主羅曼·羅蘭稱贊它是“有史以來最偉大的小說”，“是我們時代最偉大的史詩，是近代的伊利亞特”。
《戰爭與和平》是一部宏偉巨著，它以戰爭問題為中心，以庫拉金、包爾康斯基、勞斯托夫、別竺豪夫四傢貴族的生活為綫索，展示了19世紀最初15年的俄國歷史，描繪了各個階級的生活，是一部再現當時社會風貌的恢弘史詩。作品中的各色人物刻畫精準細膩，景物如臨眼前，雖是19世紀的小說作品，但流傳至今，卻沒有任何隔閡感，其中流露出來對人性的悲憫情懷，穿越時空背景，仍舊撼動人心。
《戰爭與和平》-內容簡要
1805年7月，拿破侖率兵徵服了歐洲，法俄之間正醖釀着激烈的戰爭。然而在彼得堡上層的人們依舊過着恬靜悠閑的生活，達官貴人們都彙聚在皇后的女官兼寵臣安娜·巴甫洛夫娜舉辦傢宴招待會上。
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
赴宴的有宮廷官高位重的伐西裏王爵和他漂亮卻行為不端的女兒美倫，還有個頭高大健壯的年輕人彼爾，他戴着眼鏡，剪短發，穿淺色的流行短褲和褐色燕尾服。彼爾是莫斯科著名貴族別竺豪夫的私生子，從小出國留學，今年20歲，學成回國到首都謀職。他一進宴會廳，對人們議論拿破侖徵戰歐洲頗感興趣。在這裏，他高興地結識了英俊而剛毅的青年安德烈－－先朝保羅皇帝的退職老總司令包爾康斯基的長子，兩人很快成了好朋友。
此時，安德烈正應庫圖佐夫將軍的召喚，去任他的傳令官，將出國跟徵戰歐洲的拿破侖軍隊作戰，任即將分娩的妻子和妹妹瑪麗再三勸留，也改變不了他的决心，他期望通過這次戰爭為自己帶來輝煌與榮耀。在出徵之前，安德烈把妻子從首都送到了在莫斯科郊外居住的父親那裏，委托父親加以關照。於是他急奔前綫，在波蘭追上了俄軍總司令庫圖佐夫，總司令派他到聯合縱隊去任職，並受到了嘉奬。
彼爾回到莫斯科，他繼承了別竺豪夫伯爵身後所有的遺産，搖身一變成為莫斯科數一數二的資本傢，成為社交界的寵兒。他的親戚伐西裏早就窺視別竺豪夫傢的財産，本想通過篡改遺囑來謀得，失敗後，又處心積慮地要拉攏彼爾，一方面為他在彼得堡謀得一個不小的官職，又挖空心思巧安排，讓已是宮廷女官的女兒美倫嫁給彼爾，以圖錢財。結果他的計謀順利達成，可這樁婚事實在不幸之至。彼爾發現了妻子與好友多勃赫夫之間的曖昧關係，他與多勃赫夫進行搏鬥，並幸運的擊倒對方，隨之與妻子分居，自己也陷入了善惡和生死的睏擾之中，在加入共濟會後，受到寬宏大量的哲學的熏陶，接回了妻子。
當安德烈再次回到總司令身邊，俄奧聯軍對法的奧斯特裏齊戰鬥就要打響了。由於在戰前的軍事會議上，否决了幾位老將軍的意見，采取了馬上出擊的戰略，結果慘敗。安德烈受傷被俘，途中昏迷，被敵人誤以為活不成而丟下，庫圖佐夫也以為安德烈陣亡，給他的父親去信報喪。可是安德烈在老百姓的救治下又康復了。愈後的他直奔老傢，是日夜晚，妻子莉沙正好産下一名男嬰，但她卻在分娩中死去了。安德烈在孤獨與絶望之中給妻子最後一個吻，他覺得人生已再無意義，决定終老於領地。
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
一八零七年六月，俄與法言和，和平生活開始了。
一八零九年春天，安德烈·保爾康斯基因貴族會之事而去拜托羅斯托夫伯爵。在伯爵傢他被充滿生命力的年輕小姐娜達莎深深地吸引了。但由於禿山老公爵強烈反對，衹好互相約以一年的緩衝期，而 後，安德烈·保爾康斯基即出國去了。但是，年輕的娜達莎無法忍受寂寞，且經不起彼爾之妻愛倫的哥哥阿納托爾的誘惑，而擅自約定私奔，因此，與安德烈·保爾康斯基的婚約即告無效。
一八一二年，俄、法兩國再度交戰，安德烈·保爾康斯基於多勃琪諾戰役中身受重傷，而俄軍節節敗退，眼見莫斯科即將陷於敵人之手了。羅斯托夫傢將原本用來搬運傢産的馬車，改派去運送傷兵，娜達莎方能能於傷兵中發現將死的安德烈·保爾康斯基。她嚮他謝罪並熱誠看護他，但一切都是徒勞了，安德烈·保爾康斯基仍然逃不過死亡之神而去世了。
彼爾化裝成農夫，想伺機刺殺拿破 侖，但卻被法軍逮捕而成為俘虜。其妻愛倫於戰火中，仍繼續其放蕩行為，最後，因誤服墮胎藥而且死亡。
幾番奮戰後，俄國終於贏得勝利，彼爾於莫斯科巧遇娜達莎，兩人便結為夫 婦，而安德烈·保爾康斯基的妹妹瑪莉亞也與娜達莎之兄尼剋拉結婚，而組成一個幸福的家庭。
《戰爭與和平》-相關評價
《戰爭與和平》問世至今，一直被人稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”。這部捲帙浩繁的巨著以史詩般廣阔與雄渾的氣勢，生動地描寫了1805至1820年俄國社會的重大歷史事件和各個生活領域：“近千個人物，無數的場景，國傢和私人生活的一切可能的領域，歷史，戰爭，人間一切慘劇，各種情欲，人生各個階段，從嬰兒降臨人間的啼聲到氣息奄奄的老人的感情最後迸發，人所能感受到的一切歡樂和痛苦，各種可能的內心思緒，從竊取自己同伴的錢幣的小偷的感覺，到英雄主義的最崇高的衝動和領悟透徹的沉思——在這幅畫裏都應有盡有。”（斯特拉霍夫語）作傢對生活的大面積涵蓋和整體把握，對個別現象與事物整體、個人命運與周圍世界的內在聯繫的充分揭示，使這部小說具有極大的思想和藝術容量。
這是一部人民戰爭的英雄史詩。托爾斯泰曾經表示：“在《戰爭與和平》裏我喜歡人民的思想。”也就是說，作者力圖在這部作品裏表現俄國人民在反侵略戰爭中的愛國主義精神及其歷史作用。在國傢危急的嚴重關頭，許多來自下層的俄軍普通官兵同仇敵愾，浴血奮戰，雖然戰事一度失利，但精神上卻始終占有壓倒的優勢。老百姓也主動起來保傢衛國。在人民群衆中涌現出一大批像網升、傑尼索夫、謝爾巴狄那樣的英雄人物。俄軍統帥庫圖佐夫也因為體現了人民的意志，纔具有過人的膽略和决勝的信心。整部小說以無可辯駁的事實證明了托爾斯泰的“人民戰爭的巨棒以全部威嚴雄偉的力量”趕走了侵略者的思想。
作者在小說中也認真探索了貴族階級的歷史命運問題。小說的主要情節就是圍繞着包爾康斯基、別素霍夫、羅斯托夫、庫拉金四大貴族家庭的生活展開的。60年代，托爾斯泰仍站在貴族階級的立場上，但是他對接近宮廷的上
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
層貴族卻給予深刻的揭露和批判。在民族危亡的關頭，庫拉金之流漠視國傢命運，畏敵如虎，他們關心的是尋歡作樂，積聚私産。小說中，庫拉金是官痞，兒子阿納托爾是惡少，女兒愛侖則是蕩婦。這些貴族的卑劣行徑與人民為國獻身的崇高精神形成了強烈的反差。托爾斯泰認為，俄國的前途在於“優秀”貴族與人民的合作。他用詩意的筆觸描寫了京城以外的莊園貴族羅斯托夫一傢和包爾康斯基一傢，指出在這些貴族身上仍保留着淳厚的古風，他們有愛國心，與人民的精神相通。這裏，作者在一定程度上美化了宗法製貴族。
這部小說的主人公是安德烈·包爾康斯基、彼埃爾·別素霍夫和娜塔莎·羅斯托娃。這三個人物都是作者喜愛的正面形象。安德烈和彼埃爾是探索型的青年貴族知識分子。小說中，這兩個人物在性格和生活道路上形成了鮮明的對比。安德烈性格內嚮，意志堅強，有較強的社會活動能力，他後來投身軍隊和參與社會活動庫塞、阿多諾、弗洛姆、哈貝馬斯（JürgenHabermas，1929—），在嚴酷的事實面前逐步認識到上層統治階級的腐敗和人民的力量，彼埃爾心直口快，易動感情，缺少實際活動能力，更側重於對道德理想的追求，後來主要在與人民的直接接觸中精神上得到成長。女主人公娜塔莎與兩位主人公的關係使她成為小說中重要的連綴人物，而這一形象本身又是個性鮮明，生氣勃勃的。小說充分展開了娜塔莎熱烈而豐富的情感，她與人民和大自然的接近，她的民族氣質，以及她在精神上的成長。這幾個主要人物形象都具有較高的認識價值和審美價值。
《戰爭與和平》藝術成就卓著。在這部作品中，托爾斯泰有力地拓寬了長篇小說表現生活的幅度，並在傳統的史詩體小說和戲劇式小說的基礎上創造了一種比較成熟的形態。小說場面壯闊，結構清晰，人物形象鮮明，有一種大海般恢宏開闊的美。同時，小說時代感強烈，它雖是一部歷史題材小說，但卻反映了農奴製改革後俄國前途和人民作用的問題。因此，《戰爭與和平》當之無愧地是一部“了不起的巨著”。（列寧語）
《戰爭與和平》-閱讀價值
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
戰爭是一場歷史爭論不休的話題。有人說它是為了和平，也有人說是為了進步，因為戰爭確實有的時候加快了文明的步伐。不管戰爭為何，但似乎都起源於矛盾與行為。不可否認，人的心理是存在好鬥的一面，在平凡的生活中家庭、事業、感情等一係列瑣事，都讓我們活得無比擔憂，在單調乏味的生活裏，人是很難適應這種不變動的生活。
在托爾斯泰的小說裏《戰爭與和平》，如果拿戰爭單獨的來講的話，那麽戰爭是自由的。這種自由為人性與釋放的自由。在一場戰爭中瞬間的生死是可以選擇的，活着的目的就是為了殺人，殺人的目的就是為了活着。在這個簡單而殘酷的圈子裏衹存有兩種人，即朋友和敵人，除此之外一切都變得不重要了，這讓許多復雜事情也顯現得無比鮮明化了。小說中羅斯托夫是喜歡這種簡單的人。在瘋狂的爭奪與罪惡的戰爭中，羅斯托夫找到了自己的價值，這種價值並非是在上層交際圈裏固有的。更多的是羅斯托夫作為一個傳統人物，在虛榮和榮耀的引導下更多的懂得犧牲自己。然而戰爭是需要這類人的，生活也不排斥，但在托爾斯泰的小說裏卻並未得到贊揚，這讓人不難想象其中包含裏面的趣味與真誠，值得讓人感動！
索尼亞是那麽的愛着他，與其說她是愛着他的靈魂與全部，還不如說她是為自己編織的信念而愛着。在托爾斯泰的小說中很容易看到，一目目的愛情都存在着一定的目的性和世俗的挺嚮性。索尼亞為姨媽傢的名利放棄了羅斯托夫，安德安為世俗的貞操放棄了娜塔沙，一切都那麽的變換莫測，但又存在單調的一致性——即為名、利、虛榮而放棄自己原本的生活。
在安德列經歷了幾次的生死離別之後，戰爭就像是一盞明燈似的忽暗忽明的出現在他眼前，有時像是指清道路有時卻顯得那麽的撲朔迷離。衹有在生與死即將分開的時候，現實和理想在他眼中纔看得那麽清楚。作者一個年齡段一個年齡段的敘述了安德列所經歷的感受，這讓我門毫不費解的走進了他的內心世界，心有靈犀的思考着擺在自己面前的問題。現實—理想，當思考的時候必然會産生矛盾，也必然會有所結果。書中一步步在矛盾中不完善的結果來闡述了安德列的思想升華，通過對他的人物塑造讓我們比較完整的瞭解了人性的一面。
在戰場上，安德列開始也和羅斯托夫一樣，想通過戰爭來建立一份殊榮，做為一個男人來講這是應具備的。但他不明白應該具備這種殊榮的目的是為什麽，也許是一種無形的力量在引誘他這樣做。在亞歷山大的皇權下，大多數人都可以為勇氣和殊榮獻身，與其說是為進步和文明而戰，還不如說是為別人和其他的東西而戰。
不難看到，在這場關鍵性的戰域中，拿破侖的真正對手並不是亞歷山大，而是亞歷山大的屬下庫圖佐夫，一個深
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
受皇帝排斥但又離不開他的人。確定他為一名將軍倒還不如說他是一位仁智的老頭，一位懂得平平凡凡生活真諦的人。在拿破侖的天才戰略中，被人類認為是瘋狂加藝術的行為在這裏得到了休息，就像是一隻十分威猛的蜂子撞進了棉花堆裏，一切鋒芒都包容在不痛不癢的棉絲裏。而衹能像是蒼蠅一樣等待着蜘蛛的進食。在這裏我們衹能用托爾斯泰的話語：庫圖佐夫是一位懂得自然規律的人！——生活又何嘗不一樣需要這樣的人呢。
在安德列臨死的那一刻（有幾次這樣的時刻），文中總會出現藍天、白雲、童年時的想象和一切當時認為不愉快而現在想起來令他愉快的事，這些東西在安德列的眼中就像過雨雲煙，一切都顯得那麽的真實與美好，這讓我們不難想象生活其實是美好的，衹是我們過與苛求。
在安德列死後僅接着是皮埃爾和娜塔沙（安德列的未婚妻）、安德列的姐姐馬麗亞（虔誠的教徒）和羅斯托夫的幸福婚姻生活，這也正預示了無論是在戰爭的背後，還是在經過一切腥風血雨的掙紮之後，生活的要求其實很簡單，一切都是人類在作怪罷了！
《戰爭與和平》-現代註釋[精文]
[英國] 埃裏剋·霍布斯鮑姆 尹宏毅 翻譯
20世紀是人類有記載的歷史上最殺人不眨眼的世紀。戰爭所造成的或者與戰爭有關的死亡總人數估計為1.87億，相當於1913年世界人口的10%以上。如果算作是從1914年開始，這是一個戰爭幾乎不間斷的世紀，其中某地沒有發生有組織的武裝衝突的時期很少也很短暫。占據世紀主導地位的是世界大戰：即國傢或國傢聯盟之間的戰爭。
從1914年到1945年的時期可以被看作一場單一的“30年戰爭”，僅僅被20年代的一段間歇所打斷——在日本人於1922年最終從蘇聯北亞撤退和1931年對東北亞的進攻之間的時期。幾乎緊隨其後的是大約40年的冷戰，這一時期符合霍布斯的戰爭定義，即其“不是僅僅包括戰鬥或者戰爭行為，而且包括一段時間，其中通過戰鬥來進行鬥爭的意志得到了充分的表達。”一個可以辯論的問題是，從冷戰結束以來，美軍在世界各地所參與的行動在多大程度上構成了這個世界大戰時代的延續。然而毫無疑義的是，20世紀90年代充滿了歐洲、非洲和西亞及東亞的正式與非正式的軍事衝突。世界整體來說從1914年以來一直沒有和平，現在也是一樣。
儘管如此，這個世紀不能被籠統地來對待，不論是從年代上還是從地理上來說。按照年代順序，它分為三個階段：以德國為中心的世界大戰時代（1914年到 1945年）、兩個超級大國對峙的時代（1945年到1989年）和傳統的國際實力體係終結以來的時代。我將把這些時期稱為第一、第二和第三時期。從地理上講，軍事行動的影響一直是十分不勻稱的。除了一個例外（1932年到1935年的查科戰爭），西半球（美洲）在20世紀裏沒有重大的國傢間戰爭（與內戰相區分）。敵人的軍事行動很少觸及這些領土：因此，9月11日世界貿易中心和五角大樓被炸纔令人震驚。
從1945年以來，國傢間的戰爭也從歐洲消失了，而在此之前，歐洲曾經是主要的戰場地區。雖然在第三時期裏，戰爭回到了東南歐，但是在該大陸的其餘地方，它卻看來不大可能重演。另一方面，在第二時期，與全球對峙並不一定毫無聯繫的國傢間戰爭仍然在中東和南亞肆虐，直接産生於這場全球對峙的主要戰爭在東亞和東南亞（韓國和印度支那）發生。與此同時，撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲等地區在第一時期裏受戰爭影響比較少（埃塞俄比亞除外，它遲遲地於1935到1936年遭受意大利的殖民徵服），在第二時期成為武裝衝突的戰場，並在第三時期目睹了屍橫遍野和水深火熱。
20世紀的另外兩個戰爭特點很突出，第一個不如第二個明顯。21世紀開始之際，我們不知不覺地進入這樣一個世界：武裝的行動基本上不再為政府或者其所授權的代理人所掌握，爭端的各方除了動用武力的願望外，毫無共同特徵、身份或目標。
國傢間的戰爭在第一和第二時期主導了戰爭的形象，以致現有國傢或帝國領土範圍內的內戰或其它武裝衝突在一定程度上被掩蓋了。就連十月革命後俄羅斯帝國領土上的內戰以及中華帝國崩潰後發生的內戰，也能夠與國際衝突的框架相吻合，因為它們彼此不可分離。另一方面，拉丁美洲在20世紀裏可能並沒有軍隊跨越國界，但它卻是重大國內衝突的場所：例如1911年以後在墨西哥、1948年以來在哥倫比亞，以及第二時期在許多中美洲國傢，都是如此。人們一般沒有認識到，從60年代過半以來，國際戰爭的數量相當持續地減少了。60年代中期，內部衝突變得比國傢之間的衝突更加常見。國內衝突的數量繼續激增，一直到90年代纔趨於平緩。
人們更加熟悉的是戰鬥員與非戰鬥員之間區別的被侵蝕。上半個世紀的兩次世界大戰涉及交戰各國的全部人口；戰鬥員和非戰鬥員都遭受了損失。然而，在這個世紀進程中，戰爭的負擔越來越多地從武裝力量轉移到平民身上。平民不僅是其受害者，而且越來越多地成為軍事或軍事-政治行動的目標。第一次世界大戰和第二次之間的對比是顯著的：在一戰中陣亡者當中，衹有5%是平民；二戰中這一數字增加到66%。普遍的估計是，今天受戰爭影響的人們當中有80%到90%是平民。這一比例從冷戰結束以來增加了，因為從那時以來的大多數軍事行動都不是由義務兵軍隊，而是由小股正規或非正規部隊進行的，在許多情況下所使用的是高技術武器，他們還受到保護，以免承擔傷亡的風險。沒有理由懷疑，戰爭的主要受害者仍將是平民。
假如戰爭與和平像這個世紀初那樣保持涇渭分明，則20世紀對這兩者的著述會容易一些。世紀初，1899年和 1907年的海牙公約把戰爭的規則編入法典。衝突被認為主要發生在主權國傢之間，或者如果發生在一個特定國傢領土範圍內，是在組織充分、因而被其它主權國傢公認具有交戰地位的各方之間展開。戰爭當時被認為與和平有顯著區別，通過開戰時的一項戰爭宣言和戰爭結束時的一項和約。軍事行動被認為在戰鬥員之間有明顯區別——其特徵譬如他們所穿的軍裝或者顯示其屬於一支有組織的軍隊的其它跡象——以及非作戰平民。戰爭被認為是戰鬥員之間的事情。非戰鬥員衹要可能，就應當在戰時受到保護。
過去一貫的諒解是，這些公約並不涵蓋所有的國內和國際武裝衝突，特別是不包括西方國傢在國際公認的主權國傢管轄範圍以外地區進行的帝國擴張所造成的衝突，儘管這些衝突當中的一些（但絶非全部）被稱為“戰爭”。它們也不包括反對地位穩固的國傢的大規模叛亂，譬如所謂的“印度兵變”，或者在國傢或名義上統治着這些國傢的帝國當局有效控製範圍之外地區反復發生的武裝活動，譬如阿富汗或摩洛哥山區的劫掠和血仇。儘管如此，海牙公約仍然是第一次世界大戰中的指導方針。20世紀，這一相對的明確性被混亂所取代。
首先，國際衝突與國內衝突之間的界綫變得模糊不清，因為20世紀的特點不僅是戰爭，而且還有革命和帝國的解體。一國內部的革命或解放鬥爭對國際局勢産生影響，在冷戰期間尤其如此。相反地，俄羅斯革命後，國傢對自己所不支持的別國內部事務的幹預變得司空見慣，起碼在這樣做風險比較小的地方是如此。現在情況仍然是這樣。
第二，戰爭與和平之間的明確差別變得含糊不清。除了個別地方外，第二次世界大戰既不是以宣戰開始，也不是以和約結束。隨後的一個時期不論是從舊的意義上講歸類為戰爭還是和平都很睏難，因此“冷戰”這個新字眼不得不被發明來描述它。冷戰以來狀況的模糊性的一個明證就是中東的當前局勢。不論“戰爭”還是“和平” 都沒有確切描述海灣戰爭正式結束以來伊拉剋的形勢——該國仍然幾乎每天都遭到外國的轟炸——巴勒斯坦人和以色列人之間的關係也是如此，還有以色列與其鄰國、黎巴嫩和敘利亞之間的關係。所有這些都是一種不幸的後遺癥，其原因是20世紀的世界大戰，還有戰爭的越來越強大的大衆宣傳機器，以及彼此不相稱的和充滿激情的意識形態之間對峙的一個時期。這種對峙給戰爭帶來了相當於在以往的宗教衝突中所見到的正義討伐的成分。
這些衝突與國際實力體係的傳統戰爭不同，越來越多地是為了不可談判的目的，譬如“無條件投降”而進行。由於戰爭和勝利都被看作一邊倒的，所以對18和19世紀的戰爭公約所可能強加給交戰國能力的任何限製——甚至正式的宣戰——都被拋棄。對勝利者堅持自己意志的威力的任何限製也是如此。經驗表明，在和平情況下達成的協議可能很容易被撕毀。
近年來，使情況進一步復雜化的是，在人們的公開言論中，“戰爭”一詞往往被用來指部署有組織的力量打擊被看作反社會的各種國傢或國際活動——例如“反黑手黨的戰爭”或“反販毒組織的戰爭”。在這些衝突中，武裝力量的兩個類型的行動被混淆。一個類型——我們稱之為“士兵”——用來對付其他武裝力量，目的是擊敗他們。另外一個——我們把它叫做“警察”——努力保持或恢復一個現有的政治實體，一般是一個國傢內部必要程度的法律和公共秩序。並不帶有任何必要的道德隱含意義的勝利是一種力量的目的；將違法者繩之以法則帶有道德的涵義，乃是另外一種力量的目標。然而，這種區分在理論上比在實踐中容易做出，戰鬥中的一名士兵殺人本身並不犯法。但如果愛爾蘭共和軍的一名成員把自己看作交戰一方，儘管正式的英國法律把他視為殺人犯，則情況如何？
北愛爾蘭的活動是像愛爾蘭共和軍所認為的那樣是一場戰爭呢，還是在違法者面前為了維持英國的一個省有秩序的治理而做出的努力？由於不僅一支可觀的當地警察部隊，而且還有一支全國性的軍隊被動員起來對付愛爾蘭共和軍達30年左右，所以我們可以斷定，這是一場戰爭，但卻是一場像警察行動一樣有條不紊地實施的戰爭，其方式把傷亡和該省中的生活中斷減少到最低限度。新世紀開始時和平與戰爭之間關係的復雜性和混亂情況就是如此。它們得到了美國及其盟國目前正在進行的軍事與其它行動的充分詮釋。
現在像整個20世紀一樣，全然沒有任何能夠控製或解决武裝爭端的有效的全球權威機構。全球化已經在幾乎每個方面取得進展——經濟上、技術上、文化上甚至語言上——唯一例外的是，在政治與軍事上，各國仍然是唯一的有效權威。雖然正式的國傢有200個左右，但是在實踐上衹有少數舉足輕重，其中美國享有占壓倒優勢的威力。然而從來沒有任何國傢或帝國足夠地龐大、富裕或強大，以維持在世界政治領域中的霸權，就更不用說建立全球範圍的政治與軍事上的至高無上地位了。一個單一的超級大國無法彌補全球權威的空白，尤其鑒於其效力足以使之獲得主要國傢的自願接受、被當作具有約束力的公約的缺乏——例如涉及國際裁軍或者武器控製的等等。一些這種權威機構是存在的，特別是聯合國、各種法律與金融機構，譬如國際貨幣基金組織、世界銀行和世界貿易組織，以及一些國際法庭。但沒有任何一個擁有除了國傢之間的協議所賦予它們的之外的、由於強大國傢的支持而獲得的或者各國自願接受的有效權力。雖然這一點令人遺憾，但是在可以預見的將來卻不大可能改變。
由於衹有國傢纔行使實際的權力，所以風險在於，國際機構在試圖應付“戰爭罪行”等違法行為的時候會無效或者缺乏普遍的合法地位。甚至當通過普遍共識而建立世界法庭（例如根據聯合國1998年7月17日的羅馬協議建立的國際刑事法庭），它們的判斷也不一定會被當作合法和有約束力的而接受，衹要強國有條件對其加以無視。一個由強國組成的集團可能足夠強大，以確保來自比較弱小國傢的一些違犯者被送上這些法庭，從而或許在某些地區限製武裝衝突的殘酷程度。然而這是表明在一個國際體係內權力與影響力的傳統行使、而不是國際法行使的實例。
然而在21世紀與20世紀之間有重大差別：認為戰爭是發生在一個劃分為處於有效的政府權威之下的領土地區的世界上，這些政府享有對公共權力和強迫手段的壟斷，這種想法已經不再適用。它從來都不適用於經歷着革命的國傢或者四分五裂的帝國的各個分裂部分，但直到最近為止，大多數新的革命或後殖民地政權——中國在1911年和1949年之間是主要的例外——相當迅速地再生，成為基本上有組織的和正常運轉的繼承政權和國傢。然而最近30年左右，由於各種原因，國傢喪失了其對武裝力量的一貫的壟斷、很大一部分從前的穩定性與權力，而且越來越多地還喪失了合法地位或者公認的永久性的根本感覺，這種地位過去使政府得以把稅賦與徵兵等負擔強加給心甘情願的公民。戰爭的物質裝備現在對民間組織來說普遍地唾手可得，資助非國傢戰爭的手段也是如此，這樣一來，國傢與非國傢組織之間的力量對比已經改變。
國傢內部的武裝衝突已經變得更加嚴重，並且可能繼續幾十年，而沒有任何勝利或得到解决的真實前景：剋什米爾、安哥拉、斯裏蘭卡、車臣、哥倫比亞。在極端的情況下，譬如在非洲的部分地區，國傢可能已經基本不復存在，或者譬如在哥倫比亞，可能不再在本國部分領土上行使政權。甚至在強大和穩定的國傢裏，也一直難以消除非官方的小型武裝集團，譬如英國的愛爾蘭共和軍及西班牙的巴斯剋民族和自由組織。這一局面的新奇性通過一件事實顯示出來：地球上最強大的國傢在遭受了一場恐怖主義襲擊後感到有義務發動一場正式的行動，打擊一個很小的國際與非政府組織或網絡，而後者既沒有領土，也沒有一支能夠辨認的軍隊。
這些變化如何影響今後一個世紀戰爭與和平之間的平衡呢？我寧願不就很有可能爆發的戰爭或者它們可能的結局做出預測。然而不論武裝衝突的結構還是解决的方法都由於主權國傢世界體係的轉變而發生了深刻變化。
蘇聯的解體意味着，曾經指導了國際關係將近兩個世紀、除了明顯的例外還對國傢之間的衝突行使了一定的控製權的大國體係不復存在。它的消失消除了現在國傢間戰爭和國傢對別國事務進行武裝幹預的一大因素——冷戰期間外國領土的邊界基本上未曾被軍隊所跨越。然而即使那時，由於弱小國傢的大量存在（儘管這些國傢從官方意義上講是聯合國的“主權”成員國），國際體係就已經存在潛在的不穩定性。
蘇聯和歐洲共産黨政權的垮臺明顯地使這種不穩定性增加。在迄今為止穩定的民族國傢，譬如英國、西班牙、比利時和意大利，具有不同程度實力的分離主義趨勢完全可能進一步加重這種不穩定。與此同時，國際舞臺上民間表演者的數量也成倍增加。有什麽機製可以用來控製和解决這種衝突嗎？從記錄看並不令人樂觀。90年代的武裝衝突沒有一次以穩定的解决而告終。由於冷戰的機構、假設與言論的持續存在，所以舊的懷疑未曾消亡，從而惡化了東南歐共産主義以後的分崩離析，使得解决一度被稱為南斯拉夫的地區問題更加睏難。
我們要想製訂一些控製武裝衝突的手段，就必須從意識形態和權力-政治兩方面消除這些冷戰遺留下來的假設。此外明顯的是，美國通過單方的武力來強加一種（任何一種）新的世界秩序的努力都已經失敗並且必然繼續失敗，不管力量關係目前如何朝着有利於美國的方向偏斜，儘管美國得到了一個（必然短命的）聯盟的支持。國際體係仍將是多邊的，其管製將取决於幾個大國達成一致的能力，儘管其中一個國傢享有軍事上的壓倒優勢。
美國所采取的國際軍事行動在多大程度上取决於別國通過談判的協議已經很清楚。此外也清楚的是，戰爭的政治解决，甚至美國所參與的戰爭的解决，都將是通過談判而不是通過單方的強加於人。以無條件投降而結束的戰爭的時代在可以預見的將來不會重演。
對於現有的國際機構，特別是聯合國的角色，也必須重新考慮。雖然它無時不在而且通常是求助的對象，但是在解决爭端方面，卻沒有明確的角色。它的戰略與行動始終任憑不斷變幻的權力政治所宰割。缺乏一個被真正看作中立的和能夠在未經安全理事會事先授權情況下采取行動的國際中介，這一直是爭端處理體係中最明顯的空白。
冷戰結束以來，對和平與戰爭的處理一直是即興的。在最好情況下，譬如在巴爾幹地區，武裝衝突被外部武裝幹預製止，敵對行動結束時的現狀由第三方的軍隊來維持。武裝衝突未來控製的一個通用模型能否從這種幹預中産生還不清楚。
21世紀中戰爭與和平之間的平衡將不會取决於製訂比較有效的談判和解决機製，而是要看內部穩定和軍事衝突的避免情況如何。除了少數例外，現有的國傢之間的、過去導致了武裝衝突的對抗與摩擦今天造成這種局面的可能性減小了。例如現在的國際邊界問題上的政府間燃眉之急的衝突相對來說很少。另一方面，內部衝突很容易演變成暴力性的：戰爭的主要危險存在於外國或者外部軍事勢力對衝突的捲入。
與貧睏、嚴重不平等和經濟不穩定的國傢相比，經濟蒸蒸日上、穩定而且商品在居民當中比較公平地分配的國傢，其社會和政治局勢動蕩的可能性較小。然而，避免或控製國內武裝暴力活動的情況更加直接地取决於國傢政府的實力和政績，及其在多數居民眼中的合法地位。今天沒有任何政府能夠對非武裝民衆的存在或者歐洲很多地方人們所長期熟悉的公共秩序的程度，認為理所當然。今天沒有任何政府有條件無視或者清除掉國內的武裝少數民族。
儘管如此，世界越來越分裂為能夠對自己領土和公民加以有效管理的國傢以及為數越來越多的領土，其邊界是得到官方承認的國際界綫，國傢的政府則從虛弱和腐敗的到蕩然無存的都有。這些地區所醖釀的是流血的內部鬥爭和國際衝突，譬如我們在非洲中部所見到。然而這種地區沒有持續改善的即刻前景，如果動蕩不定的國傢的中央政府進一步被削弱或者世界版圖進一步巴爾幹化，則無疑會加重武裝衝突的危險。
一項嘗試性的預測：21世紀的戰爭不大可能像20世紀的那樣血腥。但造成不成比例的苦難與損失的武裝暴力仍將在世界很多地方無處不在和泛濫成災。一個和平的世紀的前景是遙遠的。
Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.
Portions of an earlier version having been serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867, the novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it top of its list of Top 100 Books.
Tolstoy himself, somewhat enigmatically, said of War and Peace that it was "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle."
War and Peace is famously long for a novel (though not the longest by any means). It is subdivided into four books or volumes, each with subparts containing many chapters.
Tolstoy got the title, and some of his themes, from an 1861 work of Proudhon: La Guerre et la Paix. Tolstoy had served in the Crimean War and written a series of short stories and novellas featuring scenes of war. He began writing War and Peace in the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. During the writing of the second half of the book, after the first half had already been written under the name "1805", he read widely, acknowledging Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations, although he developed his own views of history and the role of the individual within it.
The novel can be generally classified as historical fiction. It contains elements present in many types of popular 18th and 19th century literature, especially the romance novel. War and Peace attains its literary status by transcending genres. Tolstoy was instrumental in bringing a new kind of consciousness to the novel. His narrative structure is noted for its "god-like" ability to hover over and within events, but also swiftly and seamlessly to take a particular character's point of view. His use of visual detail is often cinematic in its scope, using the literary equivalents of panning, wide shots and close-ups, to give dramatic interest to battles and ballrooms alike. These devices, while not exclusive to Tolstoy, are part of the new novel that is arising in the mid-19th century and of which Tolstoy proves himself a master.
Realism
Tolstoy incorporated extensive historical research, and he was influenced by many other novels as well. Himself a veteran of the Crimean War, Tolstoy was quite critical of standard history, especially the standards of military history, in War and Peace. Tolstoy read all the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars and combined more traditional historical writing with the novel form - he explains at the start of the novel's third volume his views on how history ought to be written. His aim was to blur the line between fiction and history, in order to get closer to the truth, as he states in Volume II.
The novel is set 60 years earlier than the time at which Tolstoy wrote it, "in the days of our grandfathers", as he puts it. He had spoken with people who had lived through the war of 1812 (In Russia), so the book is also, in part, accurate ethnography fictionalized. He read letters, journals, autobiographical and biographical materials pertaining to Napoleon and the dozens of other historical characters in the novel. There are approximately 160 real persons named or referred to in War and Peace.
Reception
The first draft of War and Peace was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik published the first part of this early version under the title 1805 and the following year published more of the same early version. Tolstoy was increasingly dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published (with a different ending) in 1867 still under the title "1805" He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869. Tolstoy's wife Sophia Tolstoy handwrote as many as 8 or 9 separate complete manuscripts before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication. The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending than the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869.
The completed novel was then called Voyna i mir (new style orthography; in English War and Peace).
Tolstoy did not destroy the 1805 manuscript (sometimes referred to as "the original War and Peace"), which was re-edited and annotated in Russia in 1983 and since has been translated separately from the "known" version, to English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and Korean. The fact that so many extant versions of War and Peace survive make it one of the best revelations into the mental processes of a great novelist.
Russians who had read the serialized version, were anxious to acquire the complete first edition, which included epilogues, and it sold out almost immediately. The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages.
Isaac Babel said, after reading War and Peace, "If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy." Tolstoy "gives us a unique combination of the 'naive objectivity' of the oral narrator with the interest in detail characteristic of realism. This is the reason for our trust in his presentation."
Language
Although Tolstoy wrote most of the book, including all the narration, in Russian, significant portions of dialogue (including its opening paragraph) are written in French and characters often switch between the languages. This reflected 19th century reality since Russian aristocracy in the early nineteenth century were conversant in French, which was often considered more refined than Russian—many were much less competent in Russian. An example in the novel is Julie Karagina, Princess Marya's friend, who has to take Russian lessons in order to master her native language.
It has been suggested that it is a deliberate strategy of Tolstoy to use French to portray artifice and insincerity, as the language of the theater and deceit while Russian emerges as a language of sincerity, honesty and seriousness. When Pierre proposes to Helene he speaks to her in French—Je vous aime—and as the marriage emerges as a sham he blames those words.
As the book progresses, and the wars with the French intensify, culminating in the capture and eventual burning of Moscow, the use of French diminishes. The progressive elimination of French from the text is a means of demonstrating that Russia has freed itself from foreign cultural domination. It is also, at the level of plot development, a way of showing that a once-admired and friendly nation, France, has turned into an enemy. By midway through the book, several of the Russian aristocracy, whose command of French is far better than their command of Russian, are anxious to find Russian tutors for themselves.
English translations
War and Peace has been translated into English on several occasions, starting by Clara Bell working from a French translation. The translators Constance Garnett and Louise and Aylmer Maude knew Tolstoy personally. Translations have to deal with Tolstoy’s often peculiar syntax and his fondness of repetitions. About 2% of War and Peace is in French; Tolstoy removed the French in a revised 1873 edition, only to restore it later again. Most translators follow Garnett retaining some French, Briggs uses no French, while Pevear-Volokhonsky retain the French fully. (For a list of translations see below)
Background and historical context
In 1812 by the Russian artist Illarion Pryanishnikov
The novel begins in the year 1805 and leads up to the war of 1812[citation needed]. The era of Catherine the Great is still fresh in the minds of older people. It was Catherine who ordered the Russian court to change to speaking French, a custom that was stronger in Petersburg than in Moscow.[citation needed] Catherine's son and successor, Paul I, is the father of the current Czar, Alexander I. Alexander I came to the throne in 1801 at the age of 24. His mother, Marya Feodorovna, is the most powerful woman in the court.
The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families — the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins and the Drubetskoys—and the entanglements of their personal lives with the history of 1805–1813, principally Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. The Bezukhovs, while very rich, are a fragmented family as the old Count, Kirill Vladimirovich, has fathered dozens of illegitimate sons. The Bolkonskys are an old established and wealthy family based at Bald Hills. Old Prince Bolkonsky, Nikolai Andreevich, served as a general under Catherine the Great, in earlier wars. The Moscow Rostovs have many estates, but never enough cash. They are a closely knit, loving family who live for the moment regardless of their financial situation. The Kuragin family has three children, who are all of questionable character. The Drubetskoy family is of impoverished nobility, and consists of an elderly mother and her only son, Boris, whom she wishes to push up the career ladder.
Tolstoy spent years researching and rewriting the book. He worked from primary source materials (interviews and other documents), as well as from history books, philosophy texts and other historical novels. Tolstoy also used a great deal of his own experience in the Crimean War to bring vivid detail and first-hand accounts of how the Russian army was structured.
The standard Russian text of 'War and Peace' is divided into four books (fifteen parts) and two epilogues – one mainly narrative, the other thematic. While roughly the first half of the novel is concerned strictly with the fictional characters, the later parts, as well as one of the work's two epilogues, increasingly consist of essays about the nature of war, power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies previous fictional convention. Certain abridged versions remove these essays entirely, while others, published even during Tolstoy's life, simply moved these essays into an appendix.
Plot summary
War and Peace has a large cast of characters, some historically real (like Napoleon and Alexander I), the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. The scope of the novel is vast, but the focus is primarily on five aristocratic families and their experiences in life. The interactions of these characters are set in the era leading up to, around and following the French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic wars.
Book/Volume One
The novel begins in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given in July 1805 by Anna Pavlovna Scherer — the maid of honour and confidante to the queen mother Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main players and aristocratic families of the novel are introduced as they enter Anna Pavlovna's salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, an elderly man who is dying after a series of strokes. He is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad after his mother's death and at his father's expense, Pierre is essentially kindhearted, but socially awkward owing in part to his open, benevolent nature, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. He is his father's favorite of all the old count’s illegitimate children, and this is known to everyone at Anna Pavlovna's.
Pierre's friend, the intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of the charming society favourite Lise, also attends the soireé. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and disillusioned with married life after discovering his wife is empty and superficial, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon.
The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov has four adolescent children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a disciplined young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his teenage love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child of the Rostov family, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) is nine and the youngest of the Rostov family; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. The heads of the family, Count Ilya Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova, are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances.
At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky and his devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya, and departs for the war.
The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first taste of battle. He meets Prince Andrei, whom he insults in a fit of impetuousness. Even more than most young soldiers, he is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless and perhaps psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov.
Book/Volume Two
Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning home to Moscow on home leave in early 1806. Nikolai finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor estate management. He spends an eventful winter at home, accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from the Pavlograd Regiment in which he serves. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to find himself a good financial prospect in marriage, Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the dowry-less Sonya.
Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the richest and most eligible bachelor in the Russian Empire. Despite rationally knowing that it is wrong, he proposes marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Hélène (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina), to whom he is sexually attracted. Hélène, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother, the equally charming and immoral Anatol, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. Hélène has an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov, a seasoned dueller and a ruthless killer, to a duel. Unexpectedly, Pierre wounds Dolokhov. Hélène denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and, after almost being violent to her, leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, he joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in Masonic internal politics. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, he abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note.
Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound. In the face of death, Andrei realizes all his former ambitions are pointless and his former hero Napoleon (who rescues him in a horseback excursion to the battlefield) is apparently as vain as himself.
Prince Andrei recovers from his injuries in a military hospital and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying in childbirth. He is stricken by his guilty conscience for not treating Lise better when she was alive and is haunted by the pitiful expression on his dead wife's face. His child, Nikolenka, survives.
Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei does not return to the army but chooses to remain on his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior and help solve some of the problems of Russian disorganization that he believes were responsible for the loss of life in battle on the Russian side. Pierre comes to visit him and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife.
Pierre's estranged wife, Hélène, begs him to take her back, and against his better judgment he does. Despite her vapid shallowness, Hélène establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society.
Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, old Prince Bolkonsky, Andrei's father, dislikes the Rostovs, opposes the marriage, and insists on a year's delay. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha initially distraught. She soon recovers her spirits, however, and Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to spend some time with a friend in Moscow.
Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets Hélène and her brother Anatol. Anatol has since married a Polish woman whom he has abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and is determined to seduce her. Hélène and Anatol conspire together to accomplish this plan. Anatol kisses Natasha and writes her passionate letters, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Pierre is initially shocked and horrified at Natasha's behavior, but comes to realize he has fallen in love with her himself. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811–2 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre.
Prince Andrei accepts coldly Natasha's breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal of marriage. Shamed by her near-seduction and at the realisation that Andrei will not forgive her, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill.
Book/Volume Three
With the help of her family, especially Sonya, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming showdown between Napoleon's troops and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. Old prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke while trying to protect his estate from French marauders. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to Princess Maria, but remembers his promise to Sonya.
Back in Moscow, the war-obsessed Petya manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist.
Napoleon himself is a main character in this section of the novel and is presented in vivid detail, as both thinker and would-be strategist. His toilette and his customary attitudes and traits of mind are depicted in detail. Also described are the well-organized force of over 400,000 French Army (only 140,000 of them actually French-speaking) which marches quickly through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil he experiences firsthand the death and destruction of war. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's reputedly invincible army. For strategic reasons and having suffered grievous losses, the Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatol Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatol loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a cannon wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified.
Book/Volume Four
The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rostopchin is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, and in the end load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded.
When Napoleon's Grand Army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her.
Pierre saves the life of a French officer who fought at Borodino, yet is taken prisoner by the retreating French during his attempted assassination of Napoleon, after saving a woman from being raped by soldiers in the French Army. He becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation—during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French—Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action.
Meanwhile, Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, has been taken in as a casualty and cared for by the fleeing Rostovs. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before dying.
As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Hélène dies in a botched operation (implied to be an abortion). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha.
Epilogues
The first epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family, which is undergoing a transition. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate.
Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His abhorrence at the idea of marrying for wealth almost gets in his way, but finally in spite of rather than according to his mother's wishes, he marries the now-rich Maria Bolkonskaya and in so doing also saves his family from financial ruin.
Nikolai and Maria then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their life. Buoyed by his wife's fortune, Nikolai pays off all his family's debts. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky.
As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples–Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria–remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820, much to the jubilation of everyone concerned. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father "would be satisfied..." (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt).
The second epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. He attempts to show that there is a great force behind history, which he first terms divine. He offers the entire book as evidence of this force, and critiques his own work. God, therefore, becomes the word Tolstoy uses to refer to all the forces that produce history, taken together and operating behind the scenes.
Principal characters in War and Peace
Main article: List of characters in War and Peace
War and Peace character tree
* Count Pyotr Kirillovich (Pierre) Bezukhov — The central character and often a voice for Tolstoy's own beliefs or struggles. He is one of several illegitimate children of Count Bezukhov; he is his father's favorite offspring.
* Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky — A strong but cynical, thoughtful and philosophical aide-de-camp in the Napoleonic Wars.
* Princess Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya — A pious woman whose eccentric father attempted to give her a good education. The caring, nurturing nature of her large eyes in her otherwise thin and plain face are frequently mentioned.
* Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov — The pater-familias of the Rostov family; terrible with finances, generous to a fault.
* Countess Natalya Rostova — Wife of Count Ilya Rostov, mother of the four Rostov children.
* Countess Natalia Ilyinichna (Natasha) Rostova — Introduced as a beautiful and romantic young girl, she evolves through trials and suffering and eventually finds happiness. She is an accomplished singer and dancer.[citation needed]
* Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov — A hussar, the beloved eldest son of the Rostov family.
* Sofia Alexandrovna (Sonya) Rostova — Orphaned cousin of Vera, Nikolai, Natasha and Petya Rostov.
* Countess Vera Ilyinichna Rostova — Eldest of the Rostov children, she marries the German career soldier, Berg.
* Pyotr Ilyich (Petya) Rostov — Youngest of the Rostov children.
* Prince Vasily Sergeyevich Kuragin — A ruthless man who is determined to marry his children well, despite having doubts about the character of some of them.
* Princess Elena Vasilyevna (Hélène) Kuragina — A beautiful and sexually alluring woman who has many affairs, including (it is rumoured) with her brother Anatole
* Prince Anatol Vasilyevich Kuragin — Hélène's brother and a very handsome, ruthless and amoral pleasure seeker who is secretly married yet tries to elope with Natasha Rostova.
* Prince Ipolit Vasilyevich — The eldest and perhaps most dim-witted of the Kuragin children.
* Prince Boris Drubetskoy — A poor but aristocratic young man who is determined to make his career, even at the expense of his friends and benefactors, marries a rich and ugly woman to help him climb the social ladder.
* Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya — The mother of Boris.
* Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov — A cold, almost psychopathic officer, he ruins Nikolai Rostov after his proposal to Sonya is refused, he only shows love to his doting mother.
* Adolf Karlovich Berg — A young Russian officer, who desires to be just like everyone else.
* Anna Pavlovna Sherer — Also known as Annette, she is the hostess of the salon that is the site of much of the novel's action in Petersburg.
* Maria Dmitryevna Akhrosimova — An older Moscow society lady, she is an elegant dancer and trend-setter, despite her age and size.
* Amalia Evgenyevna Bourienne — A French woman who lives with the Bolkonskys, primarily as Princess Marya's companion.
* Vasily Dmitrich Denisov — Nikolai Rostov's friend and brother officer, who proposes to Natasha.
* Platon Krataev - The archetypal good Russian peasant, whom Pierre meets in the prisoner of war camp.
* Napoleon I of France — the Great Man, whose fate is detailed in the book.
* General Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov — Russian commander-in-chief throughout the book. His diligence and modesty eventually save Russia from Napoleon.[citation needed]
* Osip Bazdeyev — the Freemason who interests Pierre in his mysterious group, starting a lengthy subplot.[citation needed]
* Tsar Alexander I of Russia — He signed a peace treaty with Napoleon in 1807 and then went to war with him.
Many of Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace were based on real-life people known to Tolstoy himself. His grandparents and their friends were the models for many of the main characters, his great-grandparents would have been of the generation of Prince Vasilly or Count Ilya Rostov. Some of the characters, obviously, are actual historic figures.
Adaptations
Film
The first Russian film adaptation of War and Peace was the 1915 film Война и мир (Voyna i mir), directed by Vladimir Gardin and starring Gardin and the Russian ballerina Vera Karalli. It was followed in 1968 by the critically acclaimed four-part film version War and Peace, by the Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk, released individually in 1965-1967, and as a re-edited whole in 1968. This starred Lyudmila Savelyeva (as Natasha Rostova) and Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Andrei Bolkonsky). Bondarchuk himself played the character of Pierre Bezukhov. The film was almost seven hours long; it involved thousands of actors, 120 000 extras, and it took seven years to finish the shooting, as a result of which the actors age changed dramatically from scene to scene. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its authenticity and massive scale.
The novel has been adapted twice for cinema outside of Russia. The first of these was produced by F. Kamei in Japan (1947). The second was the 208-minute long 1956 War and Peace, directed by the American King Vidor. This starred Audrey Hepburn (Natasha), Henry Fonda (Pierre) and Mel Ferrer (Andrei). Audrey Hepburn was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best British actress and for a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama production.
Opera
* Initiated by a proposal of the German director Erwin Piscator in 1938, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev composed his opera War and Peace (Op. 91, libretto by Mira Mendelson) based on this epic novel during the 1940s. The complete musical work premiered in Leningrad in 1955. It was the first opera to be given a public performance at the Sydney Opera House (1973).
Music
* Composition by Nino Rota
* Referring to album notes, the first track "The Gates of Delirium", from the album Relayer, by the progressive rock group Yes, is said to be based loosely on the novel.
Theatre
The first successful stage adaptations of War and Peace were produced by Alfred Neumann and Erwin Piscator (1942, revised 1955, published by Macgibbon & Kee in London 1963, and staged in 16 countries since) and R. Lucas (1943).
A stage adaptation by Helen Edmundson, first produced in 1996 at the Royal National Theatre, was published that year by Nick Hern Books, London. Edmundson added to and amended the play for a 2008 production as two 3-hour parts by Shared Experience, directed by Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. This was first put on at the Nottingham Playhouse, then toured in the UK to Liverpool, Darlington, Bath, Warwick, Oxford, Truro, London (the Hampstead Theatre) and Cheltenham.
On the 15th-18th July, The Birmingham Theatre School performed this seven-hour epic play at The Crescent Theatre in Brindleyplace with great success. Birmingham Theatre School is the only drama school in the world to perform the new adaptation of War and Peace. Directed by Chris Rozanski and Assistant to Director was Royal National Theatre performer Anthony Mark Barrow with Vocals arranged by Dr Ria Keen and choreography by Colin Lang.
Radio and television
* In December 1970, Pacifica Radio station WBAI broadcast a reading of the entire novel (the 1968 Dunnigan translation) read by over 140 celebrities and ordinary people.
* War and Peace (1972): The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) made a television serial based on the novel, broadcast in 1972-73. Anthony Hopkins played the lead role of Pierre. Other lead characters were played by Rupert Davies, Faith Brook, Morag Hood, Alan Dobie, Angela Down and Sylvester Morand. This version faithfully included many of Tolstoy's minor characters, including Platon Karataev (Harry Locke). ,
* A dramatized full-cast adaptation in ten parts was written by Marcy Kahan and Mike Walker in 1997. The production won the 1998 Talkie award for Best Drama and was around 9.5 hours in length. It was directed by Janet Whitaker and featured Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Richard Johnson, and others.
* La Guerre et la paix (TV) (2000) by François Roussillon. Robert Brubaker played the lead role of Pierre.
* War and Peace (2007): produced by the Italian Lux Vide, a TV mini-series in Russian & English co-produced in Russia, France, Germany, Poland and Italy. Directed by Robert Dornhelm, with screenplay written by Lorenzo Favella, Enrico Medioli and Gavin Scott. It features an international cast with Alexander Beyer playing the lead role of Pierre assisted by Malcolm McDowell, Clémence Poésy, Alessio Boni, Pilar Abella, J. Kimo Arbas, Ken Duken, Juozapas Bagdonas and Toni Bertorelli.
Full translations into English
* Clara Bell (from a French version) 1885-86
* Nathan Haskell Dole 1898
* Leo Wiener 1904
* Constance Garnett (1904)
* Louise and Aylmer Maude (1922-3)
* Rosemary Edmonds (1957, revised 1978)
* Ann Dunnigan (1968)
* Anthony Briggs (2005)
* Andrew Bromfield (2007), translation of the first completed draft, approx. 400 pages shorter than other English translations.
* Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2007)
安德烈不顧懷孕的妻子和年邁的父親，堅持到軍隊服役。戰役失敗，他頽喪回傢，恰逢妻子難産而死，彼埃爾則在父親臨終前被立為財産繼承人，並承襲了其父的伯爵稱號，和貴族庫拉金的女兒艾倫結婚。婚後不久，因兩人性格不合而分居。彼埃爾與羅斯托夫伯爵一傢在去打獵的路上，把沉浸在喪妻之痛的安德烈也拉去打獵，伯爵的女兒娜塔莎·羅斯托娃對安德烈産生了好感。不久，娜塔莎接受了安德烈的求婚，訂立了婚約。
過了一段時間，安德烈重返軍隊。艾倫的弟弟阿納托裏騙得娜塔莎的愛，唆使其與他私奔。俄法戰爭開始，擔任總司令的庫圖佐夫將軍决定暫時放棄莫斯科。在撤退途中，娜塔莎遇到受重傷的安德烈，安德烈諒解了娜塔莎，但他卻因傷勢過重而離開了人世。
戰爭勝利結束後，彼埃爾回到了莫斯科，娜塔莎把自己的命運永遠的與彼埃爾結合在了一起……
《戰爭與和平》-影片評價
這是一部製作精緻、構思嚴謹的巨片。場面壯闊，氣勢磅礴，繼承了前蘇聯在拍攝歷史題材影片方面的傳統，完美地融托爾斯泰原著精神於其中，再現了俄法戰爭時期俄羅斯大地廣阔的歷史畫捲。影片以1812年俄國衛國戰爭為中心，反映了1805年至1820年重大事件，包括奧斯特利茨大戰、波羅底諾會戰、莫斯科大火、拿破侖潰退等。通過對四大家庭以及安德烈、彼埃爾、娜塔莎在戰爭與和平環境中的思想和行動的描寫，展示了當時俄國社會的風貌。耗時五年，據稱耗資一億美元(當時的價錢)的宏偉巨製，試圖極其忠實地復製托爾斯泰的長篇巨著。戰爭戲和舞會戲非常出色，但整體水準參差不齊。影片長達六個半小時，在蘇聯電影史上有着舉足輕重的地位，同時獲奧斯卡最佳外語片奬。1956年的美國版雖然比這部短，但也有 208分鐘，有奧黛麗·赫本、亨利·方達等主演，也是以戰爭場面取勝。1973年英國BBC推出750分鐘的電視版。
《戰爭與和平》-花絮
影片拍攝耗資高達5億6000萬美元，堪稱影史上最昂貴的影片。
影片拍攝得到了蘇聯軍方的大力協助，甚至軍方試圖讓片中兵力盡量與實際戰役的參戰人數基本相同。在世界影史上，本片成為動用臨時演員最多的影片之一，超過本片的衹有1982年的《甘地傳》，參加該片拍攝的臨時演員多達30萬人。
1981年3月，本片在墨西哥電視一臺和二臺首次播出，創下了電視臺播放最長影片的吉尼斯世界紀錄。
1958年，好萊塢著名製片人邁剋爾·托德(Michael Todd)訪問莫斯科，他曾提議聯合拍攝本片，但遭到蘇聯政府的拒絶。
《戰爭與和平》-精彩對白
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: Natasha... I love you too much. More than anything in the world.
安德烈王子：娜塔莎……我太愛你了。超過這世上的一切。
Natasha Rostova: And I! But why too much?
娜塔莎：我也是！但為什麽這麽強烈？
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: Why too much? Well, what do you think? What do you feel in your soul, deep in your soul? Shall I live? What do you think?
安德烈王子：為什麽？你是怎麽想的？在你心靈深處感知到什麽？我會活下去嗎？你是怎麽想的？
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
Natasha Rostova: I'm sure of it.
娜塔莎：當然。
Prince Andrei Bolkonsky: How good that would be.
安德烈王子：那會多好。
Narrator: Enough, enough, men. Stop, consider, what are you doing? Into the minds of tired and hungry men on both sides, a flicker of doubt began to creep. Were they to go on slaughtering one another? Kill whom you like, do what you like, but I've had enough. Yet some inexplicable, mysterious power continued to control them, and the terrible business went on, carried out not by the will of individual men.
旁白：夠了，夠了，停下吧，你們想想，你們在做什麽？交戰雙方饑寒交迫筋疲力盡的人們開始思考，一絲疑慮開始蔓延。他們還將互相殺戮嗎？隨便你們為所欲為吧，我已經厭倦了。然而一些無法解釋的、神秘的力量在繼續控製着他們，災難扔在繼續，個人的意願無法改變這一切。
《戰爭與和平》-劇情
日本侵華戰爭期間，小柴健一所在運輸船被炸沉後，他被中國漁民救活，從此留在中國軍隊服務。健一的死亡通知單被送到東京的妻子町子手中，町子和健一幼年時的朋友伍東康吉結合了，帶着健一的兒子茂男幸福地生活在一起。但在空襲中，康吉精神上受到了刺激變得失常。日本投降後，健一回到家乡，他沒有想到，妻子町子已經與康吉結了婚，他在絶望中要求把茂男交給自己撫養，但是茂男已經和康吉有了感情，健一不得不放棄帶走茂男的念頭。...
《戰爭與和平》- 幕後花絮
此片是按照當時占日美軍的意圖拍攝的，是為日本新憲法放棄戰爭作宣傳的影片。但對於兩位導演來說，這正是他們想要拍攝的主題，因為在戰爭期間，他們目睹了戰爭帶給人民的殘酷和不幸生活。此片的重要意義還在於，導演龜井文夫把大量表現中國難民的鏡頭組接在影片中，使日本人民看到了真實的戰爭殘酷的一面，對日本人民的觸動很大，因此廣大日本人民對此片的評價很高，影片在日本電影史上有不可忽視的地位。
《戰爭與和平》-小說引言
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
托爾斯泰捲秩浩繁的長篇小說。場面浩大，人物繁多，被稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”，成就非凡。《戰爭與和平》問世至今，一直被人稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”。 這部捲帙浩繁的巨著以史詩般廣阔與雄渾的氣勢，生動 地描寫了1805至1820年俄國社會的重大歷史事件和各個生活領域：“近千個人物，無數的場景，國傢和私人生活的一切可能的領域，歷史，戰爭，人間一切慘劇，各種情欲，人生各個階段，從嬰兒降臨人間的啼聲到氣息奄奄的老人的感情最後迸發，人所能感受到的一切歡樂和痛苦，各種可能的內心思緒，從竊取自己同伴的錢幣的小偷的感覺，到英雄主義的最崇高的衝動和領悟透徹的沉思— —在這幅畫裏都應有盡有。”作者對生活的大面積涵蓋和整體把握，對個別現象與事物整體、個人命運與周圍世界的內在聯繫的充分揭示，使這部小說具有極大的思想和藝術容量。 這是托爾斯泰創作的第一部捲秩浩繁的長篇小說。 作者把戰爭與和平，前綫與後方、國內與國外、軍隊與社會、上層與下層連結起來，既全面反映了時代風貌，又為各式各樣的典型人物創造了極廣阔的典型環境。作者對人物的描寫形象既復雜又豐滿，常用對比的藝術方法來表述，體裁在俄國文學史上是一種創新，也超越了歐洲長篇小說的傳統規範。
《戰爭與和平》-作者簡介
列夫·托爾斯泰（Л.Н.Толстой,Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy,1828—1910)，19世紀俄羅斯文學寫實主義的代表作傢，公認的最偉大的俄羅斯文學家， 《西方正典》作者、美國著名文學教授兼批評傢哈洛·卜倫甚至稱之為“從文藝復興以來，惟一能挑戰荷馬、但丁與莎士比亞的偉大作傢”。對文學擁有“狂戀式愛情”的托爾
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
斯泰，是俄羅斯文學史上創作時間最長、作品數量最多、影響最深遠、地位最崇高的作傢，重情節、重典型、重寫實、重批判的文學時代，在他筆下達到巔峰。長篇巨著《戰爭與和平》、 《安娜·卡列尼娜》 和《復活》是托爾斯泰文學藝術上的三個里程碑。百年來，他的作品被譯為各國文字，銷售量纍積超過5億册，是大師中的大師。
《戰爭與和平》恢弘的構思和卓越的藝術描寫震驚世界文壇，成為舉世公認的世界文學名著和人類寶貴的精神財富。英國作傢毛姆及諾貝爾文學奬得主羅曼·羅蘭稱贊它是“有史以來最偉大的小說”，“是我們時代最偉大的史詩，是近代的伊利亞特”。
《戰爭與和平》是一部宏偉巨著，它以戰爭問題為中心，以庫拉金、包爾康斯基、勞斯托夫、別竺豪夫四傢貴族的生活為綫索，展示了19世紀最初15年的俄國歷史，描繪了各個階級的生活，是一部再現當時社會風貌的恢弘史詩。作品中的各色人物刻畫精準細膩，景物如臨眼前，雖是19世紀的小說作品，但流傳至今，卻沒有任何隔閡感，其中流露出來對人性的悲憫情懷，穿越時空背景，仍舊撼動人心。
《戰爭與和平》-內容簡要
1805年7月，拿破侖率兵徵服了歐洲，法俄之間正醖釀着激烈的戰爭。然而在彼得堡上層的人們依舊過着恬靜悠閑的生活，達官貴人們都彙聚在皇后的女官兼寵臣安娜·巴甫洛夫娜舉辦傢宴招待會上。
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
赴宴的有宮廷官高位重的伐西裏王爵和他漂亮卻行為不端的女兒美倫，還有個頭高大健壯的年輕人彼爾，他戴着眼鏡，剪短發，穿淺色的流行短褲和褐色燕尾服。彼爾是莫斯科著名貴族別竺豪夫的私生子，從小出國留學，今年20歲，學成回國到首都謀職。他一進宴會廳，對人們議論拿破侖徵戰歐洲頗感興趣。在這裏，他高興地結識了英俊而剛毅的青年安德烈－－先朝保羅皇帝的退職老總司令包爾康斯基的長子，兩人很快成了好朋友。
此時，安德烈正應庫圖佐夫將軍的召喚，去任他的傳令官，將出國跟徵戰歐洲的拿破侖軍隊作戰，任即將分娩的妻子和妹妹瑪麗再三勸留，也改變不了他的决心，他期望通過這次戰爭為自己帶來輝煌與榮耀。在出徵之前，安德烈把妻子從首都送到了在莫斯科郊外居住的父親那裏，委托父親加以關照。於是他急奔前綫，在波蘭追上了俄軍總司令庫圖佐夫，總司令派他到聯合縱隊去任職，並受到了嘉奬。
彼爾回到莫斯科，他繼承了別竺豪夫伯爵身後所有的遺産，搖身一變成為莫斯科數一數二的資本傢，成為社交界的寵兒。他的親戚伐西裏早就窺視別竺豪夫傢的財産，本想通過篡改遺囑來謀得，失敗後，又處心積慮地要拉攏彼爾，一方面為他在彼得堡謀得一個不小的官職，又挖空心思巧安排，讓已是宮廷女官的女兒美倫嫁給彼爾，以圖錢財。結果他的計謀順利達成，可這樁婚事實在不幸之至。彼爾發現了妻子與好友多勃赫夫之間的曖昧關係，他與多勃赫夫進行搏鬥，並幸運的擊倒對方，隨之與妻子分居，自己也陷入了善惡和生死的睏擾之中，在加入共濟會後，受到寬宏大量的哲學的熏陶，接回了妻子。
當安德烈再次回到總司令身邊，俄奧聯軍對法的奧斯特裏齊戰鬥就要打響了。由於在戰前的軍事會議上，否决了幾位老將軍的意見，采取了馬上出擊的戰略，結果慘敗。安德烈受傷被俘，途中昏迷，被敵人誤以為活不成而丟下，庫圖佐夫也以為安德烈陣亡，給他的父親去信報喪。可是安德烈在老百姓的救治下又康復了。愈後的他直奔老傢，是日夜晚，妻子莉沙正好産下一名男嬰，但她卻在分娩中死去了。安德烈在孤獨與絶望之中給妻子最後一個吻，他覺得人生已再無意義，决定終老於領地。
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
一八零七年六月，俄與法言和，和平生活開始了。
一八零九年春天，安德烈·保爾康斯基因貴族會之事而去拜托羅斯托夫伯爵。在伯爵傢他被充滿生命力的年輕小姐娜達莎深深地吸引了。但由於禿山老公爵強烈反對，衹好互相約以一年的緩衝期，而 後，安德烈·保爾康斯基即出國去了。但是，年輕的娜達莎無法忍受寂寞，且經不起彼爾之妻愛倫的哥哥阿納托爾的誘惑，而擅自約定私奔，因此，與安德烈·保爾康斯基的婚約即告無效。
一八一二年，俄、法兩國再度交戰，安德烈·保爾康斯基於多勃琪諾戰役中身受重傷，而俄軍節節敗退，眼見莫斯科即將陷於敵人之手了。羅斯托夫傢將原本用來搬運傢産的馬車，改派去運送傷兵，娜達莎方能能於傷兵中發現將死的安德烈·保爾康斯基。她嚮他謝罪並熱誠看護他，但一切都是徒勞了，安德烈·保爾康斯基仍然逃不過死亡之神而去世了。
彼爾化裝成農夫，想伺機刺殺拿破 侖，但卻被法軍逮捕而成為俘虜。其妻愛倫於戰火中，仍繼續其放蕩行為，最後，因誤服墮胎藥而且死亡。
幾番奮戰後，俄國終於贏得勝利，彼爾於莫斯科巧遇娜達莎，兩人便結為夫 婦，而安德烈·保爾康斯基的妹妹瑪莉亞也與娜達莎之兄尼剋拉結婚，而組成一個幸福的家庭。
《戰爭與和平》-相關評價
《戰爭與和平》問世至今，一直被人稱為“世界上最偉大的小說”。這部捲帙浩繁的巨著以史詩般廣阔與雄渾的氣勢，生動地描寫了1805至1820年俄國社會的重大歷史事件和各個生活領域：“近千個人物，無數的場景，國傢和私人生活的一切可能的領域，歷史，戰爭，人間一切慘劇，各種情欲，人生各個階段，從嬰兒降臨人間的啼聲到氣息奄奄的老人的感情最後迸發，人所能感受到的一切歡樂和痛苦，各種可能的內心思緒，從竊取自己同伴的錢幣的小偷的感覺，到英雄主義的最崇高的衝動和領悟透徹的沉思——在這幅畫裏都應有盡有。”（斯特拉霍夫語）作傢對生活的大面積涵蓋和整體把握，對個別現象與事物整體、個人命運與周圍世界的內在聯繫的充分揭示，使這部小說具有極大的思想和藝術容量。
這是一部人民戰爭的英雄史詩。托爾斯泰曾經表示：“在《戰爭與和平》裏我喜歡人民的思想。”也就是說，作者力圖在這部作品裏表現俄國人民在反侵略戰爭中的愛國主義精神及其歷史作用。在國傢危急的嚴重關頭，許多來自下層的俄軍普通官兵同仇敵愾，浴血奮戰，雖然戰事一度失利，但精神上卻始終占有壓倒的優勢。老百姓也主動起來保傢衛國。在人民群衆中涌現出一大批像網升、傑尼索夫、謝爾巴狄那樣的英雄人物。俄軍統帥庫圖佐夫也因為體現了人民的意志，纔具有過人的膽略和决勝的信心。整部小說以無可辯駁的事實證明了托爾斯泰的“人民戰爭的巨棒以全部威嚴雄偉的力量”趕走了侵略者的思想。
作者在小說中也認真探索了貴族階級的歷史命運問題。小說的主要情節就是圍繞着包爾康斯基、別素霍夫、羅斯托夫、庫拉金四大貴族家庭的生活展開的。60年代，托爾斯泰仍站在貴族階級的立場上，但是他對接近宮廷的上
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
層貴族卻給予深刻的揭露和批判。在民族危亡的關頭，庫拉金之流漠視國傢命運，畏敵如虎，他們關心的是尋歡作樂，積聚私産。小說中，庫拉金是官痞，兒子阿納托爾是惡少，女兒愛侖則是蕩婦。這些貴族的卑劣行徑與人民為國獻身的崇高精神形成了強烈的反差。托爾斯泰認為，俄國的前途在於“優秀”貴族與人民的合作。他用詩意的筆觸描寫了京城以外的莊園貴族羅斯托夫一傢和包爾康斯基一傢，指出在這些貴族身上仍保留着淳厚的古風，他們有愛國心，與人民的精神相通。這裏，作者在一定程度上美化了宗法製貴族。
這部小說的主人公是安德烈·包爾康斯基、彼埃爾·別素霍夫和娜塔莎·羅斯托娃。這三個人物都是作者喜愛的正面形象。安德烈和彼埃爾是探索型的青年貴族知識分子。小說中，這兩個人物在性格和生活道路上形成了鮮明的對比。安德烈性格內嚮，意志堅強，有較強的社會活動能力，他後來投身軍隊和參與社會活動庫塞、阿多諾、弗洛姆、哈貝馬斯（JürgenHabermas，1929—），在嚴酷的事實面前逐步認識到上層統治階級的腐敗和人民的力量，彼埃爾心直口快，易動感情，缺少實際活動能力，更側重於對道德理想的追求，後來主要在與人民的直接接觸中精神上得到成長。女主人公娜塔莎與兩位主人公的關係使她成為小說中重要的連綴人物，而這一形象本身又是個性鮮明，生氣勃勃的。小說充分展開了娜塔莎熱烈而豐富的情感，她與人民和大自然的接近，她的民族氣質，以及她在精神上的成長。這幾個主要人物形象都具有較高的認識價值和審美價值。
《戰爭與和平》藝術成就卓著。在這部作品中，托爾斯泰有力地拓寬了長篇小說表現生活的幅度，並在傳統的史詩體小說和戲劇式小說的基礎上創造了一種比較成熟的形態。小說場面壯闊，結構清晰，人物形象鮮明，有一種大海般恢宏開闊的美。同時，小說時代感強烈，它雖是一部歷史題材小說，但卻反映了農奴製改革後俄國前途和人民作用的問題。因此，《戰爭與和平》當之無愧地是一部“了不起的巨著”。（列寧語）
《戰爭與和平》-閱讀價值
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
戰爭是一場歷史爭論不休的話題。有人說它是為了和平，也有人說是為了進步，因為戰爭確實有的時候加快了文明的步伐。不管戰爭為何，但似乎都起源於矛盾與行為。不可否認，人的心理是存在好鬥的一面，在平凡的生活中家庭、事業、感情等一係列瑣事，都讓我們活得無比擔憂，在單調乏味的生活裏，人是很難適應這種不變動的生活。
在托爾斯泰的小說裏《戰爭與和平》，如果拿戰爭單獨的來講的話，那麽戰爭是自由的。這種自由為人性與釋放的自由。在一場戰爭中瞬間的生死是可以選擇的，活着的目的就是為了殺人，殺人的目的就是為了活着。在這個簡單而殘酷的圈子裏衹存有兩種人，即朋友和敵人，除此之外一切都變得不重要了，這讓許多復雜事情也顯現得無比鮮明化了。小說中羅斯托夫是喜歡這種簡單的人。在瘋狂的爭奪與罪惡的戰爭中，羅斯托夫找到了自己的價值，這種價值並非是在上層交際圈裏固有的。更多的是羅斯托夫作為一個傳統人物，在虛榮和榮耀的引導下更多的懂得犧牲自己。然而戰爭是需要這類人的，生活也不排斥，但在托爾斯泰的小說裏卻並未得到贊揚，這讓人不難想象其中包含裏面的趣味與真誠，值得讓人感動！
索尼亞是那麽的愛着他，與其說她是愛着他的靈魂與全部，還不如說她是為自己編織的信念而愛着。在托爾斯泰的小說中很容易看到，一目目的愛情都存在着一定的目的性和世俗的挺嚮性。索尼亞為姨媽傢的名利放棄了羅斯托夫，安德安為世俗的貞操放棄了娜塔沙，一切都那麽的變換莫測，但又存在單調的一致性——即為名、利、虛榮而放棄自己原本的生活。
在安德列經歷了幾次的生死離別之後，戰爭就像是一盞明燈似的忽暗忽明的出現在他眼前，有時像是指清道路有時卻顯得那麽的撲朔迷離。衹有在生與死即將分開的時候，現實和理想在他眼中纔看得那麽清楚。作者一個年齡段一個年齡段的敘述了安德列所經歷的感受，這讓我門毫不費解的走進了他的內心世界，心有靈犀的思考着擺在自己面前的問題。現實—理想，當思考的時候必然會産生矛盾，也必然會有所結果。書中一步步在矛盾中不完善的結果來闡述了安德列的思想升華，通過對他的人物塑造讓我們比較完整的瞭解了人性的一面。
在戰場上，安德列開始也和羅斯托夫一樣，想通過戰爭來建立一份殊榮，做為一個男人來講這是應具備的。但他不明白應該具備這種殊榮的目的是為什麽，也許是一種無形的力量在引誘他這樣做。在亞歷山大的皇權下，大多數人都可以為勇氣和殊榮獻身，與其說是為進步和文明而戰，還不如說是為別人和其他的東西而戰。
不難看到，在這場關鍵性的戰域中，拿破侖的真正對手並不是亞歷山大，而是亞歷山大的屬下庫圖佐夫，一個深
《戰爭與和平》《戰爭與和平》
受皇帝排斥但又離不開他的人。確定他為一名將軍倒還不如說他是一位仁智的老頭，一位懂得平平凡凡生活真諦的人。在拿破侖的天才戰略中，被人類認為是瘋狂加藝術的行為在這裏得到了休息，就像是一隻十分威猛的蜂子撞進了棉花堆裏，一切鋒芒都包容在不痛不癢的棉絲裏。而衹能像是蒼蠅一樣等待着蜘蛛的進食。在這裏我們衹能用托爾斯泰的話語：庫圖佐夫是一位懂得自然規律的人！——生活又何嘗不一樣需要這樣的人呢。
在安德列臨死的那一刻（有幾次這樣的時刻），文中總會出現藍天、白雲、童年時的想象和一切當時認為不愉快而現在想起來令他愉快的事，這些東西在安德列的眼中就像過雨雲煙，一切都顯得那麽的真實與美好，這讓我們不難想象生活其實是美好的，衹是我們過與苛求。
在安德列死後僅接着是皮埃爾和娜塔沙（安德列的未婚妻）、安德列的姐姐馬麗亞（虔誠的教徒）和羅斯托夫的幸福婚姻生活，這也正預示了無論是在戰爭的背後，還是在經過一切腥風血雨的掙紮之後，生活的要求其實很簡單，一切都是人類在作怪罷了！
《戰爭與和平》-現代註釋[精文]
[英國] 埃裏剋·霍布斯鮑姆 尹宏毅 翻譯
20世紀是人類有記載的歷史上最殺人不眨眼的世紀。戰爭所造成的或者與戰爭有關的死亡總人數估計為1.87億，相當於1913年世界人口的10%以上。如果算作是從1914年開始，這是一個戰爭幾乎不間斷的世紀，其中某地沒有發生有組織的武裝衝突的時期很少也很短暫。占據世紀主導地位的是世界大戰：即國傢或國傢聯盟之間的戰爭。
從1914年到1945年的時期可以被看作一場單一的“30年戰爭”，僅僅被20年代的一段間歇所打斷——在日本人於1922年最終從蘇聯北亞撤退和1931年對東北亞的進攻之間的時期。幾乎緊隨其後的是大約40年的冷戰，這一時期符合霍布斯的戰爭定義，即其“不是僅僅包括戰鬥或者戰爭行為，而且包括一段時間，其中通過戰鬥來進行鬥爭的意志得到了充分的表達。”一個可以辯論的問題是，從冷戰結束以來，美軍在世界各地所參與的行動在多大程度上構成了這個世界大戰時代的延續。然而毫無疑義的是，20世紀90年代充滿了歐洲、非洲和西亞及東亞的正式與非正式的軍事衝突。世界整體來說從1914年以來一直沒有和平，現在也是一樣。
儘管如此，這個世紀不能被籠統地來對待，不論是從年代上還是從地理上來說。按照年代順序，它分為三個階段：以德國為中心的世界大戰時代（1914年到 1945年）、兩個超級大國對峙的時代（1945年到1989年）和傳統的國際實力體係終結以來的時代。我將把這些時期稱為第一、第二和第三時期。從地理上講，軍事行動的影響一直是十分不勻稱的。除了一個例外（1932年到1935年的查科戰爭），西半球（美洲）在20世紀裏沒有重大的國傢間戰爭（與內戰相區分）。敵人的軍事行動很少觸及這些領土：因此，9月11日世界貿易中心和五角大樓被炸纔令人震驚。
從1945年以來，國傢間的戰爭也從歐洲消失了，而在此之前，歐洲曾經是主要的戰場地區。雖然在第三時期裏，戰爭回到了東南歐，但是在該大陸的其餘地方，它卻看來不大可能重演。另一方面，在第二時期，與全球對峙並不一定毫無聯繫的國傢間戰爭仍然在中東和南亞肆虐，直接産生於這場全球對峙的主要戰爭在東亞和東南亞（韓國和印度支那）發生。與此同時，撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲等地區在第一時期裏受戰爭影響比較少（埃塞俄比亞除外，它遲遲地於1935到1936年遭受意大利的殖民徵服），在第二時期成為武裝衝突的戰場，並在第三時期目睹了屍橫遍野和水深火熱。
20世紀的另外兩個戰爭特點很突出，第一個不如第二個明顯。21世紀開始之際，我們不知不覺地進入這樣一個世界：武裝的行動基本上不再為政府或者其所授權的代理人所掌握，爭端的各方除了動用武力的願望外，毫無共同特徵、身份或目標。
國傢間的戰爭在第一和第二時期主導了戰爭的形象，以致現有國傢或帝國領土範圍內的內戰或其它武裝衝突在一定程度上被掩蓋了。就連十月革命後俄羅斯帝國領土上的內戰以及中華帝國崩潰後發生的內戰，也能夠與國際衝突的框架相吻合，因為它們彼此不可分離。另一方面，拉丁美洲在20世紀裏可能並沒有軍隊跨越國界，但它卻是重大國內衝突的場所：例如1911年以後在墨西哥、1948年以來在哥倫比亞，以及第二時期在許多中美洲國傢，都是如此。人們一般沒有認識到，從60年代過半以來，國際戰爭的數量相當持續地減少了。60年代中期，內部衝突變得比國傢之間的衝突更加常見。國內衝突的數量繼續激增，一直到90年代纔趨於平緩。
人們更加熟悉的是戰鬥員與非戰鬥員之間區別的被侵蝕。上半個世紀的兩次世界大戰涉及交戰各國的全部人口；戰鬥員和非戰鬥員都遭受了損失。然而，在這個世紀進程中，戰爭的負擔越來越多地從武裝力量轉移到平民身上。平民不僅是其受害者，而且越來越多地成為軍事或軍事-政治行動的目標。第一次世界大戰和第二次之間的對比是顯著的：在一戰中陣亡者當中，衹有5%是平民；二戰中這一數字增加到66%。普遍的估計是，今天受戰爭影響的人們當中有80%到90%是平民。這一比例從冷戰結束以來增加了，因為從那時以來的大多數軍事行動都不是由義務兵軍隊，而是由小股正規或非正規部隊進行的，在許多情況下所使用的是高技術武器，他們還受到保護，以免承擔傷亡的風險。沒有理由懷疑，戰爭的主要受害者仍將是平民。
假如戰爭與和平像這個世紀初那樣保持涇渭分明，則20世紀對這兩者的著述會容易一些。世紀初，1899年和 1907年的海牙公約把戰爭的規則編入法典。衝突被認為主要發生在主權國傢之間，或者如果發生在一個特定國傢領土範圍內，是在組織充分、因而被其它主權國傢公認具有交戰地位的各方之間展開。戰爭當時被認為與和平有顯著區別，通過開戰時的一項戰爭宣言和戰爭結束時的一項和約。軍事行動被認為在戰鬥員之間有明顯區別——其特徵譬如他們所穿的軍裝或者顯示其屬於一支有組織的軍隊的其它跡象——以及非作戰平民。戰爭被認為是戰鬥員之間的事情。非戰鬥員衹要可能，就應當在戰時受到保護。
過去一貫的諒解是，這些公約並不涵蓋所有的國內和國際武裝衝突，特別是不包括西方國傢在國際公認的主權國傢管轄範圍以外地區進行的帝國擴張所造成的衝突，儘管這些衝突當中的一些（但絶非全部）被稱為“戰爭”。它們也不包括反對地位穩固的國傢的大規模叛亂，譬如所謂的“印度兵變”，或者在國傢或名義上統治着這些國傢的帝國當局有效控製範圍之外地區反復發生的武裝活動，譬如阿富汗或摩洛哥山區的劫掠和血仇。儘管如此，海牙公約仍然是第一次世界大戰中的指導方針。20世紀，這一相對的明確性被混亂所取代。
首先，國際衝突與國內衝突之間的界綫變得模糊不清，因為20世紀的特點不僅是戰爭，而且還有革命和帝國的解體。一國內部的革命或解放鬥爭對國際局勢産生影響，在冷戰期間尤其如此。相反地，俄羅斯革命後，國傢對自己所不支持的別國內部事務的幹預變得司空見慣，起碼在這樣做風險比較小的地方是如此。現在情況仍然是這樣。
第二，戰爭與和平之間的明確差別變得含糊不清。除了個別地方外，第二次世界大戰既不是以宣戰開始，也不是以和約結束。隨後的一個時期不論是從舊的意義上講歸類為戰爭還是和平都很睏難，因此“冷戰”這個新字眼不得不被發明來描述它。冷戰以來狀況的模糊性的一個明證就是中東的當前局勢。不論“戰爭”還是“和平” 都沒有確切描述海灣戰爭正式結束以來伊拉剋的形勢——該國仍然幾乎每天都遭到外國的轟炸——巴勒斯坦人和以色列人之間的關係也是如此，還有以色列與其鄰國、黎巴嫩和敘利亞之間的關係。所有這些都是一種不幸的後遺癥，其原因是20世紀的世界大戰，還有戰爭的越來越強大的大衆宣傳機器，以及彼此不相稱的和充滿激情的意識形態之間對峙的一個時期。這種對峙給戰爭帶來了相當於在以往的宗教衝突中所見到的正義討伐的成分。
這些衝突與國際實力體係的傳統戰爭不同，越來越多地是為了不可談判的目的，譬如“無條件投降”而進行。由於戰爭和勝利都被看作一邊倒的，所以對18和19世紀的戰爭公約所可能強加給交戰國能力的任何限製——甚至正式的宣戰——都被拋棄。對勝利者堅持自己意志的威力的任何限製也是如此。經驗表明，在和平情況下達成的協議可能很容易被撕毀。
近年來，使情況進一步復雜化的是，在人們的公開言論中，“戰爭”一詞往往被用來指部署有組織的力量打擊被看作反社會的各種國傢或國際活動——例如“反黑手黨的戰爭”或“反販毒組織的戰爭”。在這些衝突中，武裝力量的兩個類型的行動被混淆。一個類型——我們稱之為“士兵”——用來對付其他武裝力量，目的是擊敗他們。另外一個——我們把它叫做“警察”——努力保持或恢復一個現有的政治實體，一般是一個國傢內部必要程度的法律和公共秩序。並不帶有任何必要的道德隱含意義的勝利是一種力量的目的；將違法者繩之以法則帶有道德的涵義，乃是另外一種力量的目標。然而，這種區分在理論上比在實踐中容易做出，戰鬥中的一名士兵殺人本身並不犯法。但如果愛爾蘭共和軍的一名成員把自己看作交戰一方，儘管正式的英國法律把他視為殺人犯，則情況如何？
北愛爾蘭的活動是像愛爾蘭共和軍所認為的那樣是一場戰爭呢，還是在違法者面前為了維持英國的一個省有秩序的治理而做出的努力？由於不僅一支可觀的當地警察部隊，而且還有一支全國性的軍隊被動員起來對付愛爾蘭共和軍達30年左右，所以我們可以斷定，這是一場戰爭，但卻是一場像警察行動一樣有條不紊地實施的戰爭，其方式把傷亡和該省中的生活中斷減少到最低限度。新世紀開始時和平與戰爭之間關係的復雜性和混亂情況就是如此。它們得到了美國及其盟國目前正在進行的軍事與其它行動的充分詮釋。
現在像整個20世紀一樣，全然沒有任何能夠控製或解决武裝爭端的有效的全球權威機構。全球化已經在幾乎每個方面取得進展——經濟上、技術上、文化上甚至語言上——唯一例外的是，在政治與軍事上，各國仍然是唯一的有效權威。雖然正式的國傢有200個左右，但是在實踐上衹有少數舉足輕重，其中美國享有占壓倒優勢的威力。然而從來沒有任何國傢或帝國足夠地龐大、富裕或強大，以維持在世界政治領域中的霸權，就更不用說建立全球範圍的政治與軍事上的至高無上地位了。一個單一的超級大國無法彌補全球權威的空白，尤其鑒於其效力足以使之獲得主要國傢的自願接受、被當作具有約束力的公約的缺乏——例如涉及國際裁軍或者武器控製的等等。一些這種權威機構是存在的，特別是聯合國、各種法律與金融機構，譬如國際貨幣基金組織、世界銀行和世界貿易組織，以及一些國際法庭。但沒有任何一個擁有除了國傢之間的協議所賦予它們的之外的、由於強大國傢的支持而獲得的或者各國自願接受的有效權力。雖然這一點令人遺憾，但是在可以預見的將來卻不大可能改變。
由於衹有國傢纔行使實際的權力，所以風險在於，國際機構在試圖應付“戰爭罪行”等違法行為的時候會無效或者缺乏普遍的合法地位。甚至當通過普遍共識而建立世界法庭（例如根據聯合國1998年7月17日的羅馬協議建立的國際刑事法庭），它們的判斷也不一定會被當作合法和有約束力的而接受，衹要強國有條件對其加以無視。一個由強國組成的集團可能足夠強大，以確保來自比較弱小國傢的一些違犯者被送上這些法庭，從而或許在某些地區限製武裝衝突的殘酷程度。然而這是表明在一個國際體係內權力與影響力的傳統行使、而不是國際法行使的實例。
然而在21世紀與20世紀之間有重大差別：認為戰爭是發生在一個劃分為處於有效的政府權威之下的領土地區的世界上，這些政府享有對公共權力和強迫手段的壟斷，這種想法已經不再適用。它從來都不適用於經歷着革命的國傢或者四分五裂的帝國的各個分裂部分，但直到最近為止，大多數新的革命或後殖民地政權——中國在1911年和1949年之間是主要的例外——相當迅速地再生，成為基本上有組織的和正常運轉的繼承政權和國傢。然而最近30年左右，由於各種原因，國傢喪失了其對武裝力量的一貫的壟斷、很大一部分從前的穩定性與權力，而且越來越多地還喪失了合法地位或者公認的永久性的根本感覺，這種地位過去使政府得以把稅賦與徵兵等負擔強加給心甘情願的公民。戰爭的物質裝備現在對民間組織來說普遍地唾手可得，資助非國傢戰爭的手段也是如此，這樣一來，國傢與非國傢組織之間的力量對比已經改變。
國傢內部的武裝衝突已經變得更加嚴重，並且可能繼續幾十年，而沒有任何勝利或得到解决的真實前景：剋什米爾、安哥拉、斯裏蘭卡、車臣、哥倫比亞。在極端的情況下，譬如在非洲的部分地區，國傢可能已經基本不復存在，或者譬如在哥倫比亞，可能不再在本國部分領土上行使政權。甚至在強大和穩定的國傢裏，也一直難以消除非官方的小型武裝集團，譬如英國的愛爾蘭共和軍及西班牙的巴斯剋民族和自由組織。這一局面的新奇性通過一件事實顯示出來：地球上最強大的國傢在遭受了一場恐怖主義襲擊後感到有義務發動一場正式的行動，打擊一個很小的國際與非政府組織或網絡，而後者既沒有領土，也沒有一支能夠辨認的軍隊。
這些變化如何影響今後一個世紀戰爭與和平之間的平衡呢？我寧願不就很有可能爆發的戰爭或者它們可能的結局做出預測。然而不論武裝衝突的結構還是解决的方法都由於主權國傢世界體係的轉變而發生了深刻變化。
蘇聯的解體意味着，曾經指導了國際關係將近兩個世紀、除了明顯的例外還對國傢之間的衝突行使了一定的控製權的大國體係不復存在。它的消失消除了現在國傢間戰爭和國傢對別國事務進行武裝幹預的一大因素——冷戰期間外國領土的邊界基本上未曾被軍隊所跨越。然而即使那時，由於弱小國傢的大量存在（儘管這些國傢從官方意義上講是聯合國的“主權”成員國），國際體係就已經存在潛在的不穩定性。
蘇聯和歐洲共産黨政權的垮臺明顯地使這種不穩定性增加。在迄今為止穩定的民族國傢，譬如英國、西班牙、比利時和意大利，具有不同程度實力的分離主義趨勢完全可能進一步加重這種不穩定。與此同時，國際舞臺上民間表演者的數量也成倍增加。有什麽機製可以用來控製和解决這種衝突嗎？從記錄看並不令人樂觀。90年代的武裝衝突沒有一次以穩定的解决而告終。由於冷戰的機構、假設與言論的持續存在，所以舊的懷疑未曾消亡，從而惡化了東南歐共産主義以後的分崩離析，使得解决一度被稱為南斯拉夫的地區問題更加睏難。
我們要想製訂一些控製武裝衝突的手段，就必須從意識形態和權力-政治兩方面消除這些冷戰遺留下來的假設。此外明顯的是，美國通過單方的武力來強加一種（任何一種）新的世界秩序的努力都已經失敗並且必然繼續失敗，不管力量關係目前如何朝着有利於美國的方向偏斜，儘管美國得到了一個（必然短命的）聯盟的支持。國際體係仍將是多邊的，其管製將取决於幾個大國達成一致的能力，儘管其中一個國傢享有軍事上的壓倒優勢。
美國所采取的國際軍事行動在多大程度上取决於別國通過談判的協議已經很清楚。此外也清楚的是，戰爭的政治解决，甚至美國所參與的戰爭的解决，都將是通過談判而不是通過單方的強加於人。以無條件投降而結束的戰爭的時代在可以預見的將來不會重演。
對於現有的國際機構，特別是聯合國的角色，也必須重新考慮。雖然它無時不在而且通常是求助的對象，但是在解决爭端方面，卻沒有明確的角色。它的戰略與行動始終任憑不斷變幻的權力政治所宰割。缺乏一個被真正看作中立的和能夠在未經安全理事會事先授權情況下采取行動的國際中介，這一直是爭端處理體係中最明顯的空白。
冷戰結束以來，對和平與戰爭的處理一直是即興的。在最好情況下，譬如在巴爾幹地區，武裝衝突被外部武裝幹預製止，敵對行動結束時的現狀由第三方的軍隊來維持。武裝衝突未來控製的一個通用模型能否從這種幹預中産生還不清楚。
21世紀中戰爭與和平之間的平衡將不會取决於製訂比較有效的談判和解决機製，而是要看內部穩定和軍事衝突的避免情況如何。除了少數例外，現有的國傢之間的、過去導致了武裝衝突的對抗與摩擦今天造成這種局面的可能性減小了。例如現在的國際邊界問題上的政府間燃眉之急的衝突相對來說很少。另一方面，內部衝突很容易演變成暴力性的：戰爭的主要危險存在於外國或者外部軍事勢力對衝突的捲入。
與貧睏、嚴重不平等和經濟不穩定的國傢相比，經濟蒸蒸日上、穩定而且商品在居民當中比較公平地分配的國傢，其社會和政治局勢動蕩的可能性較小。然而，避免或控製國內武裝暴力活動的情況更加直接地取决於國傢政府的實力和政績，及其在多數居民眼中的合法地位。今天沒有任何政府能夠對非武裝民衆的存在或者歐洲很多地方人們所長期熟悉的公共秩序的程度，認為理所當然。今天沒有任何政府有條件無視或者清除掉國內的武裝少數民族。
儘管如此，世界越來越分裂為能夠對自己領土和公民加以有效管理的國傢以及為數越來越多的領土，其邊界是得到官方承認的國際界綫，國傢的政府則從虛弱和腐敗的到蕩然無存的都有。這些地區所醖釀的是流血的內部鬥爭和國際衝突，譬如我們在非洲中部所見到。然而這種地區沒有持續改善的即刻前景，如果動蕩不定的國傢的中央政府進一步被削弱或者世界版圖進一步巴爾幹化，則無疑會加重武裝衝突的危險。
一項嘗試性的預測：21世紀的戰爭不大可能像20世紀的那樣血腥。但造成不成比例的苦難與損失的武裝暴力仍將在世界很多地方無處不在和泛濫成災。一個和平的世紀的前景是遙遠的。
Epic in scale, War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events leading up to Napoleon's invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society, as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families.
Portions of an earlier version having been serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867, the novel was first published in its entirety in 1869. Newsweek in 2009 ranked it top of its list of Top 100 Books.
Tolstoy himself, somewhat enigmatically, said of War and Peace that it was "not a novel, even less is it a poem, and still less an historical chronicle."
War and Peace is famously long for a novel (though not the longest by any means). It is subdivided into four books or volumes, each with subparts containing many chapters.
Tolstoy got the title, and some of his themes, from an 1861 work of Proudhon: La Guerre et la Paix. Tolstoy had served in the Crimean War and written a series of short stories and novellas featuring scenes of war. He began writing War and Peace in the year that he finally married and settled down at his country estate. During the writing of the second half of the book, after the first half had already been written under the name "1805", he read widely, acknowledging Schopenhauer as one of his main inspirations, although he developed his own views of history and the role of the individual within it.
The novel can be generally classified as historical fiction. It contains elements present in many types of popular 18th and 19th century literature, especially the romance novel. War and Peace attains its literary status by transcending genres. Tolstoy was instrumental in bringing a new kind of consciousness to the novel. His narrative structure is noted for its "god-like" ability to hover over and within events, but also swiftly and seamlessly to take a particular character's point of view. His use of visual detail is often cinematic in its scope, using the literary equivalents of panning, wide shots and close-ups, to give dramatic interest to battles and ballrooms alike. These devices, while not exclusive to Tolstoy, are part of the new novel that is arising in the mid-19th century and of which Tolstoy proves himself a master.
Realism
Tolstoy incorporated extensive historical research, and he was influenced by many other novels as well. Himself a veteran of the Crimean War, Tolstoy was quite critical of standard history, especially the standards of military history, in War and Peace. Tolstoy read all the standard histories available in Russian and French about the Napoleonic Wars and combined more traditional historical writing with the novel form - he explains at the start of the novel's third volume his views on how history ought to be written. His aim was to blur the line between fiction and history, in order to get closer to the truth, as he states in Volume II.
The novel is set 60 years earlier than the time at which Tolstoy wrote it, "in the days of our grandfathers", as he puts it. He had spoken with people who had lived through the war of 1812 (In Russia), so the book is also, in part, accurate ethnography fictionalized. He read letters, journals, autobiographical and biographical materials pertaining to Napoleon and the dozens of other historical characters in the novel. There are approximately 160 real persons named or referred to in War and Peace.
Reception
The first draft of War and Peace was completed in 1863. In 1865, the periodical Russkiy Vestnik published the first part of this early version under the title 1805 and the following year published more of the same early version. Tolstoy was increasingly dissatisfied with this version, although he allowed several parts of it to be published (with a different ending) in 1867 still under the title "1805" He heavily rewrote the entire novel between 1866 and 1869. Tolstoy's wife Sophia Tolstoy handwrote as many as 8 or 9 separate complete manuscripts before Tolstoy considered it again ready for publication. The version that was published in Russkiy Vestnik had a very different ending than the version eventually published under the title War and Peace in 1869.
The completed novel was then called Voyna i mir (new style orthography; in English War and Peace).
Tolstoy did not destroy the 1805 manuscript (sometimes referred to as "the original War and Peace"), which was re-edited and annotated in Russia in 1983 and since has been translated separately from the "known" version, to English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and Korean. The fact that so many extant versions of War and Peace survive make it one of the best revelations into the mental processes of a great novelist.
Russians who had read the serialized version, were anxious to acquire the complete first edition, which included epilogues, and it sold out almost immediately. The novel was translated almost immediately after publication into many other languages.
Isaac Babel said, after reading War and Peace, "If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy." Tolstoy "gives us a unique combination of the 'naive objectivity' of the oral narrator with the interest in detail characteristic of realism. This is the reason for our trust in his presentation."
Language
Although Tolstoy wrote most of the book, including all the narration, in Russian, significant portions of dialogue (including its opening paragraph) are written in French and characters often switch between the languages. This reflected 19th century reality since Russian aristocracy in the early nineteenth century were conversant in French, which was often considered more refined than Russian—many were much less competent in Russian. An example in the novel is Julie Karagina, Princess Marya's friend, who has to take Russian lessons in order to master her native language.
It has been suggested that it is a deliberate strategy of Tolstoy to use French to portray artifice and insincerity, as the language of the theater and deceit while Russian emerges as a language of sincerity, honesty and seriousness. When Pierre proposes to Helene he speaks to her in French—Je vous aime—and as the marriage emerges as a sham he blames those words.
As the book progresses, and the wars with the French intensify, culminating in the capture and eventual burning of Moscow, the use of French diminishes. The progressive elimination of French from the text is a means of demonstrating that Russia has freed itself from foreign cultural domination. It is also, at the level of plot development, a way of showing that a once-admired and friendly nation, France, has turned into an enemy. By midway through the book, several of the Russian aristocracy, whose command of French is far better than their command of Russian, are anxious to find Russian tutors for themselves.
English translations
War and Peace has been translated into English on several occasions, starting by Clara Bell working from a French translation. The translators Constance Garnett and Louise and Aylmer Maude knew Tolstoy personally. Translations have to deal with Tolstoy’s often peculiar syntax and his fondness of repetitions. About 2% of War and Peace is in French; Tolstoy removed the French in a revised 1873 edition, only to restore it later again. Most translators follow Garnett retaining some French, Briggs uses no French, while Pevear-Volokhonsky retain the French fully. (For a list of translations see below)
Background and historical context
In 1812 by the Russian artist Illarion Pryanishnikov
The novel begins in the year 1805 and leads up to the war of 1812[citation needed]. The era of Catherine the Great is still fresh in the minds of older people. It was Catherine who ordered the Russian court to change to speaking French, a custom that was stronger in Petersburg than in Moscow.[citation needed] Catherine's son and successor, Paul I, is the father of the current Czar, Alexander I. Alexander I came to the throne in 1801 at the age of 24. His mother, Marya Feodorovna, is the most powerful woman in the court.
The novel tells the story of five aristocratic families — the Bezukhovs, the Bolkonskys, the Rostovs, the Kuragins and the Drubetskoys—and the entanglements of their personal lives with the history of 1805–1813, principally Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812. The Bezukhovs, while very rich, are a fragmented family as the old Count, Kirill Vladimirovich, has fathered dozens of illegitimate sons. The Bolkonskys are an old established and wealthy family based at Bald Hills. Old Prince Bolkonsky, Nikolai Andreevich, served as a general under Catherine the Great, in earlier wars. The Moscow Rostovs have many estates, but never enough cash. They are a closely knit, loving family who live for the moment regardless of their financial situation. The Kuragin family has three children, who are all of questionable character. The Drubetskoy family is of impoverished nobility, and consists of an elderly mother and her only son, Boris, whom she wishes to push up the career ladder.
Tolstoy spent years researching and rewriting the book. He worked from primary source materials (interviews and other documents), as well as from history books, philosophy texts and other historical novels. Tolstoy also used a great deal of his own experience in the Crimean War to bring vivid detail and first-hand accounts of how the Russian army was structured.
The standard Russian text of 'War and Peace' is divided into four books (fifteen parts) and two epilogues – one mainly narrative, the other thematic. While roughly the first half of the novel is concerned strictly with the fictional characters, the later parts, as well as one of the work's two epilogues, increasingly consist of essays about the nature of war, power, history, and historiography. Tolstoy interspersed these essays into the story in a way that defies previous fictional convention. Certain abridged versions remove these essays entirely, while others, published even during Tolstoy's life, simply moved these essays into an appendix.
Plot summary
War and Peace has a large cast of characters, some historically real (like Napoleon and Alexander I), the majority of whom are introduced in the first book. The scope of the novel is vast, but the focus is primarily on five aristocratic families and their experiences in life. The interactions of these characters are set in the era leading up to, around and following the French invasion of Russia during the Napoleonic wars.
Book/Volume One
The novel begins in Saint Petersburg, at a soirée given in July 1805 by Anna Pavlovna Scherer — the maid of honour and confidante to the queen mother Maria Feodorovna. Many of the main players and aristocratic families of the novel are introduced as they enter Anna Pavlovna's salon. Pierre (Pyotr Kirilovich) Bezukhov is the illegitimate son of a wealthy count, an elderly man who is dying after a series of strokes. He is about to become embroiled in a struggle for his inheritance. Educated abroad after his mother's death and at his father's expense, Pierre is essentially kindhearted, but socially awkward owing in part to his open, benevolent nature, and finds it difficult to integrate into Petersburg society. He is his father's favorite of all the old count’s illegitimate children, and this is known to everyone at Anna Pavlovna's.
Pierre's friend, the intelligent and sardonic Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky, husband of the charming society favourite Lise, also attends the soireé. Finding Petersburg society unctuous and disillusioned with married life after discovering his wife is empty and superficial, Prince Andrei makes the fateful choice to be an aide-de-camp to Prince Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov in the coming war against Napoleon.
The plot moves to Moscow, Russia's ancient city and former capital, contrasting its provincial, more Russian ways to the highly mannered society of Petersburg. The Rostov family are introduced. Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov has four adolescent children. Thirteen-year-old Natasha (Natalia Ilyinichna) believes herself in love with Boris Drubetskoy, a disciplined young man who is about to join the army as an officer. Twenty-year-old Nikolai Ilyich pledges his teenage love to Sonya (Sofia Alexandrovna), his fifteen-year-old cousin, an orphan who has been brought up by the Rostovs. The eldest child of the Rostov family, Vera Ilyinichna, is cold and somewhat haughty but has a good prospective marriage in a Russian-German officer, Adolf Karlovich Berg. Petya (Pyotr Ilyich) is nine and the youngest of the Rostov family; like his brother, he is impetuous and eager to join the army when of age. The heads of the family, Count Ilya Rostov and Countess Natalya Rostova, are an affectionate couple but forever worried about their disordered finances.
At Bald Hills, the Bolkonskys' country estate, Prince Andrei leaves his terrified, pregnant wife Lise with his eccentric father Prince Nikolai Andreyevich Bolkonsky and his devoutly religious sister Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya, and departs for the war.
The second part opens with descriptions of the impending Russian-French war preparations. At the Schöngrabern engagement, Nikolai Rostov, who is now conscripted as ensign in a squadron of hussars, has his first taste of battle. He meets Prince Andrei, whom he insults in a fit of impetuousness. Even more than most young soldiers, he is deeply attracted by Tsar Alexander's charisma. Nikolai gambles and socializes with his officer, Vasily Dmitrich Denisov, and befriends the ruthless and perhaps psychopathic Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov.
Book/Volume Two
Book Two begins with Nikolai Rostov briefly returning home to Moscow on home leave in early 1806. Nikolai finds the Rostov family facing financial ruin due to poor estate management. He spends an eventful winter at home, accompanied by his friend Denisov, his officer from the Pavlograd Regiment in which he serves. Natasha has blossomed into a beautiful young girl. Denisov falls in love with her, proposes marriage but is rejected. Although his mother pleads with Nikolai to find himself a good financial prospect in marriage, Nikolai refuses to accede to his mother's request. He promises to marry his childhood sweetheart, the dowry-less Sonya.
Pierre Bezukhov, upon finally receiving his massive inheritance, is suddenly transformed from a bumbling young man into the richest and most eligible bachelor in the Russian Empire. Despite rationally knowing that it is wrong, he proposes marriage with Prince Kuragin's beautiful and immoral daughter Hélène (Elena Vasilyevna Kuragina), to whom he is sexually attracted. Hélène, who is rumoured to be involved in an incestuous affair with her brother, the equally charming and immoral Anatol, tells Pierre that she will never have children with him. Hélène has an affair with Dolokhov, who mocks Pierre in public. Pierre loses his temper and challenges Dolokhov, a seasoned dueller and a ruthless killer, to a duel. Unexpectedly, Pierre wounds Dolokhov. Hélène denies her affair, but Pierre is convinced of her guilt and, after almost being violent to her, leaves her. In his moral and spiritual confusion, he joins the Freemasons, and becomes embroiled in Masonic internal politics. Much of Book Two concerns his struggles with his passions and his spiritual conflicts to be a better man. Now a rich aristocrat, he abandons his former carefree behavior and enters upon a philosophical quest particular to Tolstoy: how should one live a moral life in an ethically imperfect world? The question continually baffles and confuses Pierre. He attempts to liberate his serfs, but ultimately achieves nothing of note.
Pierre is vividly contrasted with the intelligent and ambitious Prince Andrei Bolkonsky. At the Battle of Austerlitz, Andrei is inspired by a vision of glory to lead a charge of a straggling army. He suffers a near fatal artillery wound. In the face of death, Andrei realizes all his former ambitions are pointless and his former hero Napoleon (who rescues him in a horseback excursion to the battlefield) is apparently as vain as himself.
Prince Andrei recovers from his injuries in a military hospital and returns home, only to find his wife Lise dying in childbirth. He is stricken by his guilty conscience for not treating Lise better when she was alive and is haunted by the pitiful expression on his dead wife's face. His child, Nikolenka, survives.
Burdened with nihilistic disillusionment, Prince Andrei does not return to the army but chooses to remain on his estate, working on a project that would codify military behavior and help solve some of the problems of Russian disorganization that he believes were responsible for the loss of life in battle on the Russian side. Pierre comes to visit him and brings new questions: where is God in this amoral world? Pierre is interested in panentheism and the possibility of an afterlife.
Pierre's estranged wife, Hélène, begs him to take her back, and against his better judgment he does. Despite her vapid shallowness, Hélène establishes herself as an influential hostess in Petersburg society.
Prince Andrei feels impelled to take his newly written military notions to Petersburg, naively expecting to influence either the Emperor himself or those close to him. Young Natasha, also in Petersburg, is caught up in the excitement of dressing for her first grand ball, where she meets Prince Andrei and briefly reinvigorates him with her vivacious charm. Andrei believes he has found purpose in life again and, after paying the Rostovs several visits, proposes marriage to Natasha. However, old Prince Bolkonsky, Andrei's father, dislikes the Rostovs, opposes the marriage, and insists on a year's delay. Prince Andrei leaves to recuperate from his wounds abroad, leaving Natasha initially distraught. She soon recovers her spirits, however, and Count Rostov takes her and Sonya to spend some time with a friend in Moscow.
Natasha visits the Moscow opera, where she meets Hélène and her brother Anatol. Anatol has since married a Polish woman whom he has abandoned in Poland. He is very attracted to Natasha and is determined to seduce her. Hélène and Anatol conspire together to accomplish this plan. Anatol kisses Natasha and writes her passionate letters, eventually establishing plans to elope. Natasha is convinced that she loves Anatol and writes to Princess Maria, Andrei's sister, breaking off her engagement. At the last moment, Sonya discovers her plans to elope and foils them. Pierre is initially shocked and horrified at Natasha's behavior, but comes to realize he has fallen in love with her himself. During the time when the Great Comet of 1811–2 streaks the sky, life appears to begin anew for Pierre.
Prince Andrei accepts coldly Natasha's breaking of the engagement. He tells Pierre that his pride will not allow him to renew his proposal of marriage. Shamed by her near-seduction and at the realisation that Andrei will not forgive her, Natasha makes a suicide attempt and is left seriously ill.
Book/Volume Three
With the help of her family, especially Sonya, and the stirrings of religious faith, Natasha manages to persevere in Moscow through this dark period. Meanwhile, the whole of Russia is affected by the coming showdown between Napoleon's troops and the Russian army. Pierre convinces himself through gematria that Napoleon is the Antichrist of the Book of Revelation. Old prince Bolkonsky dies of a stroke while trying to protect his estate from French marauders. No organized help from any Russian army seems available to the Bolkonskys, but Nikolai Rostov turns up at their estate in time to help put down an incipient peasant revolt. He finds himself attracted to Princess Maria, but remembers his promise to Sonya.
Back in Moscow, the war-obsessed Petya manages to snatch a loose piece of the Tsar's biscuit outside the Cathedral of the Assumption; he finally convinces his parents to allow him to enlist.
Napoleon himself is a main character in this section of the novel and is presented in vivid detail, as both thinker and would-be strategist. His toilette and his customary attitudes and traits of mind are depicted in detail. Also described are the well-organized force of over 400,000 French Army (only 140,000 of them actually French-speaking) which marches quickly through the Russian countryside in the late summer and reaches the outskirts of the city of Smolensk. Pierre decides to leave Moscow and go to watch the Battle of Borodino from a vantage point next to a Russian artillery crew. After watching for a time, he begins to join in carrying ammunition. In the midst of the turmoil he experiences firsthand the death and destruction of war. The battle becomes a hideous slaughter for both armies and ends in a standoff. The Russians, however, have won a moral victory by standing up to Napoleon's reputedly invincible army. For strategic reasons and having suffered grievous losses, the Russian army withdraws the next day, allowing Napoleon to march on to Moscow. Among the casualties are Anatol Kuragin and Prince Andrei. Anatol loses a leg, and Andrei suffers a cannon wound in the abdomen. Both are reported dead, but their families are in such disarray that no one can be notified.
Book/Volume Four
The Rostovs have waited until the last minute to abandon Moscow, even after it is clear that Kutuzov has retreated past Moscow and Muscovites are being given contradictory, often propagandistic, instructions on how to either flee or fight. Count Rostopchin is publishing posters, rousing the citizens to put their faith in religious icons, while at the same time urging them to fight with pitchforks if necessary. Before fleeing himself, he gives orders to burn the city. The Rostovs have a difficult time deciding what to take with them, and in the end load their carts with the wounded and dying from the Battle of Borodino. Unknown to Natasha, Prince Andrei is amongst the wounded.
When Napoleon's Grand Army finally occupies an abandoned and burning Moscow, Pierre takes off on a quixotic mission to assassinate Napoleon. He becomes an anonymous man in all the chaos, shedding his responsibilities by wearing peasant clothes and shunning his duties and lifestyle. The only people he sees while in this garb are Natasha and some of her family, as they depart Moscow. Natasha recognizes and smiles at him, and he in turn realizes the full scope of his love for her.
Pierre saves the life of a French officer who fought at Borodino, yet is taken prisoner by the retreating French during his attempted assassination of Napoleon, after saving a woman from being raped by soldiers in the French Army. He becomes friends with a fellow prisoner, Platon Karataev, a peasant with a saintly demeanor, who is incapable of malice. In Karataev, Pierre finally finds what he has been seeking: an honest person of integrity (unlike the aristocrats of Petersburg society) who is utterly without pretense. Pierre discovers meaning in life simply by living and interacting with him. After witnessing French soldiers sacking Moscow and shooting Russian civilians arbitrarily, Pierre is forced to march with the Grand Army during its disastrous retreat from Moscow in the harsh Russian winter. After months of trial and tribulation—during which the fever-plagued Karataev is shot by the French—Pierre is finally freed by a Russian raiding party, after a small skirmish with the French that sees the young Petya Rostov killed in action.
Meanwhile, Andrei, wounded during Napoleon's invasion, has been taken in as a casualty and cared for by the fleeing Rostovs. He is reunited with Natasha and his sister Maria before the end of the war. Having lost all will to live, he forgives Natasha in a last act before dying.
As the novel draws to a close, Pierre's wife Hélène dies in a botched operation (implied to be an abortion). Pierre is reunited with Natasha, while the victorious Russians rebuild Moscow. Natasha speaks of Prince Andrei's death and Pierre of Karataev's. Both are aware of a growing bond between them in their bereavement. With the help of Princess Maria, Pierre finds love at last and, revealing his love after being released by his former wife's death, marries Natasha.
Epilogues
The first epilogue begins with the wedding of Pierre and Natasha in 1813. It is the last happy event for the Rostov family, which is undergoing a transition. Count Rostov dies soon after, leaving his eldest son Nikolai to take charge of the debt-ridden estate.
Nikolai finds himself with the task of maintaining the family on the verge of bankruptcy. His abhorrence at the idea of marrying for wealth almost gets in his way, but finally in spite of rather than according to his mother's wishes, he marries the now-rich Maria Bolkonskaya and in so doing also saves his family from financial ruin.
Nikolai and Maria then move to Bald Hills with his mother and Sonya, whom he supports for the rest of their life. Buoyed by his wife's fortune, Nikolai pays off all his family's debts. They also raise Prince Andrei's orphaned son, Nikolai Andreyevich (Nikolenka) Bolkonsky.
As in all good marriages, there are misunderstandings, but the couples–Pierre and Natasha, Nikolai and Maria–remain devoted to their spouses. Pierre and Natasha visit Bald Hills in 1820, much to the jubilation of everyone concerned. There is a hint in the closing chapters that the idealistic, boyish Nikolenka and Pierre would both become part of the Decembrist Uprising. The first epilogue concludes with Nikolenka promising he would do something with which even his late father "would be satisfied..." (presumably as a revolutionary in the Decembrist revolt).
The second epilogue contains Tolstoy's critique of all existing forms of mainstream history. He attempts to show that there is a great force behind history, which he first terms divine. He offers the entire book as evidence of this force, and critiques his own work. God, therefore, becomes the word Tolstoy uses to refer to all the forces that produce history, taken together and operating behind the scenes.
Principal characters in War and Peace
Main article: List of characters in War and Peace
War and Peace character tree
* Count Pyotr Kirillovich (Pierre) Bezukhov — The central character and often a voice for Tolstoy's own beliefs or struggles. He is one of several illegitimate children of Count Bezukhov; he is his father's favorite offspring.
* Prince Andrei Nikolayevich Bolkonsky — A strong but cynical, thoughtful and philosophical aide-de-camp in the Napoleonic Wars.
* Princess Maria Nikolayevna Bolkonskaya — A pious woman whose eccentric father attempted to give her a good education. The caring, nurturing nature of her large eyes in her otherwise thin and plain face are frequently mentioned.
* Count Ilya Andreyevich Rostov — The pater-familias of the Rostov family; terrible with finances, generous to a fault.
* Countess Natalya Rostova — Wife of Count Ilya Rostov, mother of the four Rostov children.
* Countess Natalia Ilyinichna (Natasha) Rostova — Introduced as a beautiful and romantic young girl, she evolves through trials and suffering and eventually finds happiness. She is an accomplished singer and dancer.[citation needed]
* Count Nikolai Ilyich Rostov — A hussar, the beloved eldest son of the Rostov family.
* Sofia Alexandrovna (Sonya) Rostova — Orphaned cousin of Vera, Nikolai, Natasha and Petya Rostov.
* Countess Vera Ilyinichna Rostova — Eldest of the Rostov children, she marries the German career soldier, Berg.
* Pyotr Ilyich (Petya) Rostov — Youngest of the Rostov children.
* Prince Vasily Sergeyevich Kuragin — A ruthless man who is determined to marry his children well, despite having doubts about the character of some of them.
* Princess Elena Vasilyevna (Hélène) Kuragina — A beautiful and sexually alluring woman who has many affairs, including (it is rumoured) with her brother Anatole
* Prince Anatol Vasilyevich Kuragin — Hélène's brother and a very handsome, ruthless and amoral pleasure seeker who is secretly married yet tries to elope with Natasha Rostova.
* Prince Ipolit Vasilyevich — The eldest and perhaps most dim-witted of the Kuragin children.
* Prince Boris Drubetskoy — A poor but aristocratic young man who is determined to make his career, even at the expense of his friends and benefactors, marries a rich and ugly woman to help him climb the social ladder.
* Princess Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoya — The mother of Boris.
* Fyodor Ivanovich Dolokhov — A cold, almost psychopathic officer, he ruins Nikolai Rostov after his proposal to Sonya is refused, he only shows love to his doting mother.
* Adolf Karlovich Berg — A young Russian officer, who desires to be just like everyone else.
* Anna Pavlovna Sherer — Also known as Annette, she is the hostess of the salon that is the site of much of the novel's action in Petersburg.
* Maria Dmitryevna Akhrosimova — An older Moscow society lady, she is an elegant dancer and trend-setter, despite her age and size.
* Amalia Evgenyevna Bourienne — A French woman who lives with the Bolkonskys, primarily as Princess Marya's companion.
* Vasily Dmitrich Denisov — Nikolai Rostov's friend and brother officer, who proposes to Natasha.
* Platon Krataev - The archetypal good Russian peasant, whom Pierre meets in the prisoner of war camp.
* Napoleon I of France — the Great Man, whose fate is detailed in the book.
* General Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov — Russian commander-in-chief throughout the book. His diligence and modesty eventually save Russia from Napoleon.[citation needed]
* Osip Bazdeyev — the Freemason who interests Pierre in his mysterious group, starting a lengthy subplot.[citation needed]
* Tsar Alexander I of Russia — He signed a peace treaty with Napoleon in 1807 and then went to war with him.
Many of Tolstoy's characters in War and Peace were based on real-life people known to Tolstoy himself. His grandparents and their friends were the models for many of the main characters, his great-grandparents would have been of the generation of Prince Vasilly or Count Ilya Rostov. Some of the characters, obviously, are actual historic figures.
Adaptations
Film
The first Russian film adaptation of War and Peace was the 1915 film Война и мир (Voyna i mir), directed by Vladimir Gardin and starring Gardin and the Russian ballerina Vera Karalli. It was followed in 1968 by the critically acclaimed four-part film version War and Peace, by the Soviet director Sergei Bondarchuk, released individually in 1965-1967, and as a re-edited whole in 1968. This starred Lyudmila Savelyeva (as Natasha Rostova) and Vyacheslav Tikhonov (as Andrei Bolkonsky). Bondarchuk himself played the character of Pierre Bezukhov. The film was almost seven hours long; it involved thousands of actors, 120 000 extras, and it took seven years to finish the shooting, as a result of which the actors age changed dramatically from scene to scene. It won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for its authenticity and massive scale.
The novel has been adapted twice for cinema outside of Russia. The first of these was produced by F. Kamei in Japan (1947). The second was the 208-minute long 1956 War and Peace, directed by the American King Vidor. This starred Audrey Hepburn (Natasha), Henry Fonda (Pierre) and Mel Ferrer (Andrei). Audrey Hepburn was nominated for a BAFTA Award for best British actress and for a Golden Globe Award for best actress in a drama production.
Opera
* Initiated by a proposal of the German director Erwin Piscator in 1938, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev composed his opera War and Peace (Op. 91, libretto by Mira Mendelson) based on this epic novel during the 1940s. The complete musical work premiered in Leningrad in 1955. It was the first opera to be given a public performance at the Sydney Opera House (1973).
Music
* Composition by Nino Rota
* Referring to album notes, the first track "The Gates of Delirium", from the album Relayer, by the progressive rock group Yes, is said to be based loosely on the novel.
Theatre
The first successful stage adaptations of War and Peace were produced by Alfred Neumann and Erwin Piscator (1942, revised 1955, published by Macgibbon & Kee in London 1963, and staged in 16 countries since) and R. Lucas (1943).
A stage adaptation by Helen Edmundson, first produced in 1996 at the Royal National Theatre, was published that year by Nick Hern Books, London. Edmundson added to and amended the play for a 2008 production as two 3-hour parts by Shared Experience, directed by Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale. This was first put on at the Nottingham Playhouse, then toured in the UK to Liverpool, Darlington, Bath, Warwick, Oxford, Truro, London (the Hampstead Theatre) and Cheltenham.
On the 15th-18th July, The Birmingham Theatre School performed this seven-hour epic play at The Crescent Theatre in Brindleyplace with great success. Birmingham Theatre School is the only drama school in the world to perform the new adaptation of War and Peace. Directed by Chris Rozanski and Assistant to Director was Royal National Theatre performer Anthony Mark Barrow with Vocals arranged by Dr Ria Keen and choreography by Colin Lang.
Radio and television
* In December 1970, Pacifica Radio station WBAI broadcast a reading of the entire novel (the 1968 Dunnigan translation) read by over 140 celebrities and ordinary people.
* War and Peace (1972): The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) made a television serial based on the novel, broadcast in 1972-73. Anthony Hopkins played the lead role of Pierre. Other lead characters were played by Rupert Davies, Faith Brook, Morag Hood, Alan Dobie, Angela Down and Sylvester Morand. This version faithfully included many of Tolstoy's minor characters, including Platon Karataev (Harry Locke). ,
* A dramatized full-cast adaptation in ten parts was written by Marcy Kahan and Mike Walker in 1997. The production won the 1998 Talkie award for Best Drama and was around 9.5 hours in length. It was directed by Janet Whitaker and featured Simon Russell Beale, Gerard Murphy, Richard Johnson, and others.
* La Guerre et la paix (TV) (2000) by François Roussillon. Robert Brubaker played the lead role of Pierre.
* War and Peace (2007): produced by the Italian Lux Vide, a TV mini-series in Russian & English co-produced in Russia, France, Germany, Poland and Italy. Directed by Robert Dornhelm, with screenplay written by Lorenzo Favella, Enrico Medioli and Gavin Scott. It features an international cast with Alexander Beyer playing the lead role of Pierre assisted by Malcolm McDowell, Clémence Poésy, Alessio Boni, Pilar Abella, J. Kimo Arbas, Ken Duken, Juozapas Bagdonas and Toni Bertorelli.
Full translations into English
* Clara Bell (from a French version) 1885-86
* Nathan Haskell Dole 1898
* Leo Wiener 1904
* Constance Garnett (1904)
* Louise and Aylmer Maude (1922-3)
* Rosemary Edmonds (1957, revised 1978)
* Ann Dunnigan (1968)
* Anthony Briggs (2005)
* Andrew Bromfield (2007), translation of the first completed draft, approx. 400 pages shorter than other English translations.
* Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2007)